---
title: So they took pity on the poor Brownie, and asked the nearest henwife… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So they took pity on the poor Brownie, and asked the nearest henwife what they should do to send it away. Who acts: man. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Cauld Lad of Hilton, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Cauld Lad of Hilton, sentence 16

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So they took pity on the poor Brownie, and asked the nearest henwife what they should do to send it away.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** take, ask, do, send away · **To what, where:** pity, nearest henwife, henwife

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Cauld Lad of Hilton. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg7439:44:16
# text = So they took pity on the poor Brownie, and asked the nearest henwife what they should do to send it away.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	pity	pity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	Brownie	Brownie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	nearest	near	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	14	amod	_	_
14	henwife	henwife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	18	obj	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl:relcl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	send	send	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	away	away	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | man | pity |  |  |  | on the poor Brownie | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent pity=Theme on brownie=Destination |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | man *not said here* | the nearest henwife |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent henwife=Recipient |
| 3 | **do** | should | man | the nearest henwife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **send away** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* | henwife |  |  |  | away *property* | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |

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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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