---
title: “Why don't you go to work my lad?” said he to Dick. — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why don't you go to work my lad?” said he to Dick. Who acts: Dick. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Whittington and His Cat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Whittington and His Cat, sentence 14

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“Why don't you go to work my lad?” said he to Dick.

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**Who acts:** Dick · **What happens:** not go, work, say · **To what, where:** lad, Dick · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Whittington and His Cat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dick), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7439:37:14
# text = “Why don't you go to work my lad?” said he to Dick.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	go	go	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	lad	lad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	Dick	Dick	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **go** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Dick |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **work** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Dick *not said here* | my lad |  |  |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent lad=Material |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Dick |  | Dick |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to dick=Recipient |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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