---
title: But she couldn't help wondering what it was for, as she had never se… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But she couldn't help wondering what it was for, as she had never seen such a thing done before. Who acts: Dame. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fairy Ointment, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Fairy Ointment, sentence 12

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But she couldn't help wondering what it was for, as she had never seen such a thing done before.

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**Who acts:** Dame · **What happens:** not help, wonder, not see, do · **To what, where:** thing

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fairy Ointment. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dame), 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:pg7439:46:12
# text = But she couldn't help wondering what it was for, as she had never seen such a thing done before.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	wondering	wonder	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	xcomp	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	6	obl	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
17	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	19	det:predet	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	conj	_	_
21	before	before	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **help** | could | Dame |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **wonder** *speech: ask* *not said to happen* | gerund | Dame *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **not** **see** | past · perfect | Dame | such thing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus |
| 4 | **do** | participle | Dame *not said here* |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: 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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