---
title: But sometimes it would be in a good temper, and then!--“What's a Bro… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But sometimes it would be in a good temper, and then!--“What's a Brownie?” you say. Who acts: bed, Brownie. 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 4

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But sometimes it would be in a good temper, and then!--“What's a Brownie?” you say.

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**Who acts:** bed, Brownie · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** good temper, Brownie · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (bed, Brownie), 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:pg7439:44:4
# text = But sometimes it would be in a good temper, and then!--“What's a Brownie?” you say.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	9	advmod	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	temper	temper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
12	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	Brownie	Brownie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
22	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | would | bed |  |  | a good temper |  | sometimes *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | a Brownie |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | present | a Brownie |  |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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