---
title: “Oh dear,” he says, “I do think trousers are the most awkwardest kin… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Oh dear,” he says, “I do think trousers are the most awkwardest kind of clothes that ever were. Who acts: gentleman, trousers. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Sillies, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Three Sillies, sentence 39

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“Oh dear,” he says, “I do think trousers are the most awkwardest kind of clothes that ever were.

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**Who acts:** gentleman, trousers · **What happens:** say, think, be · **To what, where:** awkwardest kind · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Sillies. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gentleman, trousers), 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:pg7439:7:39
# text = “Oh dear,” he says, “I do think trousers are the most awkwardest kind of clothes that ever were.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	3	discourse	_	_
3	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	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	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
13	trousers	trousers	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
14	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	17	advmod	_	_
17	awkwardest	awkward	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	18	amod	_	_
18	kind	kind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	clothes	clothes	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan	18	nmod	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	obj	_	_
22	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	23	advmod	_	_
23	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	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 | gentleman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | present · do-support | gentleman |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | trousers | the awkwardest kind |  |  |  | of clothes | tree rules |

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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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