---
title: When poor Dick heard this, he said: “I have nothing but a cat which… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When poor Dick heard this, he said: “I have nothing but a cat which I bought for a penny some time since of a little girl.” Who acts: poor Dick, Dick. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Whittington and His Cat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/37/39/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/) / [Whittington and His Cat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/37/) / 39

# English Fairy Tales, Whittington and His Cat, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When poor Dick heard this, he said: “I have nothing but a cat which I bought for a penny some time since of a little girl.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** poor Dick, Dick · **What happens:** hear, say, have, buy · **To what, where:** this, nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (poor Dick, Dick), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7439:37:39
# text = When poor Dick heard this, he said: “I have nothing but a cat which I bought for a penny some time since of a little girl.”
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Dick	Dick	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
5	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	12	obj	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	bought	buy	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	penny	penny	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	24	det	_	_
24	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl:unmarked	_	_
25	since	since	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | poor Dick | this |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer this=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Dick |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | present | Dick | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 4 | **buy** *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  | since a little girl; time | for a penny | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent for penny=Beneficiary |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/37/38/)
- next →: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/37/40/)
- ↑ back to [Whittington and His Cat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/37/)