---
title: A man picked him out and bade him assist him in making a bridge over… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: A man picked him out and bade him assist him in making a bridge over the river; and how do you think he was doing it? Who acts: man, you, boy. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Ass, the Table, and the Stick, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Ass, the Table, and the Stick, sentence 37

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A man picked him out and bade him assist him in making a bridge over the river; and how do you think he was doing it?

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**Who acts:** man, you, boy · **What happens:** pick out, bade, assist, make, think, do · **To what, where:** boy, bridge, river · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Ass, the Table, and the Stick. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, you, boy), 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:pg7439:45:37
# text = A man picked him out and bade him assist him in making a bridge over the river; and how do you think he was doing it?
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	bade	bade	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	assist	assist	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
12	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	bridge	bridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	over	over	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	23	advmod	_	_
21	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
24	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	23	ccomp	_	_
27	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pick out** | past | a man | boy |  |  |  |  | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 2 | **bade** | past | a man *not said here* | boy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **assist** | infinitive | a man *not said here* |  | boy |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary |
| 4 | **make** | gerund | a man *not said here* | a bridge |  | the river |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset bridge=Product |
| 5 | **think** *speech: other* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 6 | **do** | past · progressive | boy | bridge |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |

<!-- .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.

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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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