---
title: Well, what should there be but the funniest little black thing you e… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Well, what should there be but the funniest little black thing you ever set eyes on. Who acts: funniest little black thing. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Tom Tit Tot, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Tom Tit Tot, sentence 101

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Well, what should there be but the funniest little black thing you ever set eyes on.

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**Who acts:** funniest little black thing · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Tom Tit Tot. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (funniest little black thing), 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:pg7439:5:101
# text = Well, what should there be but the funniest little black thing you ever set eyes on.
1	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	_
4	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
6	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
9	funniest	funny	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	amod	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
11	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
14	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	16	advmod	_	_
15	set	set	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	conj	_	_
17	on	on	ADV	RB	_	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | should | the funniest little black thing |  |  | there |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=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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