---
title: Its little brothers and sisters around the bed were flat-nosed imps… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Its little brothers and sisters around the bed were flat-nosed imps with pointed ears, who made faces at one another, and scratched their polls. Who acts: little brothers, nosed imps, brothers. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fairy Ointment, with its dependency tree and the pra
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Fairy Ointment, sentence 18

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Its little brothers and sisters around the bed were flat-nosed imps with pointed ears, who made faces at one another, and scratched their polls.

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**Who acts:** little brothers, nosed imps, brothers · **What happens:** nose, be, make, scratch, poll · **To what, where:** nosed imps, faces, polls

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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 (little brothers, nosed imps, brothers), 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:pg7439:46:18
# text = Its little brothers and sisters around the bed were flat-nosed imps with pointed ears, who made faces at one another, and scratched their polls.
1	Its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
2	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	_
6	around	around	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
10	flat	flat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	nosed	nose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	amod	_	_
13	imps	imp	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	pointed	pointed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
19	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	_
20	faces	face	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
21	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	obl	_	_
23	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	22	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	scratched	scratch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
27	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	polls	poll	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **nose** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | silk's little brothers around the bed and sisters | nosed imps |  |  |  | with pointed ears | tree rules |
| 3 | **make** | past | nosed imps | faces |  |  |  | at one | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent face=Product |
| 4 | **scratch** | past | nosed imps *not said here* | brothers's polls |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent poll=Theme |
| 5 | **poll** |  | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | nom poll «cognition transitive»: poss=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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