---
title: “Aged father,” says she, “I am going to seek my fortune.” — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Aged father,” says she, “I am going to seek my fortune.” Who acts: Aged father. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Heads of the Well, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Three Heads of the Well, sentence 10

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“Aged father,” says she, “I am going to seek my fortune.”

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**Who acts:** Aged father · **What happens:** say, go, seek · **To what, where:** princess, fortune · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Heads of the Well. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Aged father), 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:pg7439:49:10
# text = “Aged father,” says she, “I am going to seek my fortune.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Aged	aged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	ccomp	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	seek	seek	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	fortune	fortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Aged father | princess |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **go** *in a quote* | present · progressive | Aged father *= father* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **seek** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Aged father *= father* *not said here* | my fortune |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fortune=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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