---
title: “My mother killed me, My father picked my bones, My little sister bu… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “My mother killed me, My father picked my bones, My little sister buried me, Under the marble stones.” Who acts: mother, father, little sister. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, III. the Rose Tree., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, III. the Rose Tree., sentence 3

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“My mother killed me, My father picked my bones, My little sister buried me, Under the marble stones.”

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**Who acts:** mother, father, little sister · **What happens:** kill, pick, bury · **To what, where:** me, bones, marble stones

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, III. the Rose Tree.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, father, little sister), 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:pg7439:53:3
# text = “My mother killed me, My father picked my bones, My little sister buried me, Under the marble stones.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	killed	kill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	buried	bury	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
17	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	Under	under	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	marble	marble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kill** *in a quote* | past | My mother | me |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |
| 2 | **pick** *in a quote* | past | My father | my bones |  |  |  |  | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bone=Patient |
| 3 | **bury** *in a quote* | past | My little sister | me |  | the marble stones |  |  | vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent i=Theme under stone=Destination |

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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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