---
title: “My wicked mother slew me, My dear father ate me, My little brother… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “My wicked mother slew me, My dear father ate me, My little brother whom I love Sits below, and I sing above Stick!” Who acts: wicked mother, dear father, bird. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Rose-tree, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Rose-tree, sentence 44

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“My wicked mother slew me, My dear father ate me, My little brother whom I love Sits below, and I sing above Stick!”

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**Who acts:** wicked mother, dear father, bird · **What happens:** slay, eat, love, sing · **To what, where:** bird, Sits, Stick

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, 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 (wicked mother, dear father, bird), 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:pg7439:8:44
# text = “My wicked mother slew me, My dear father ate me, My little brother whom I love Sits below, and I sing above Stick!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	wicked	wicked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	slew	slay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	whom	whom	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	obl	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	love	love	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	_
20	Sits	Sit	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
21	below	below	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	sing	sing	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
26	above	above	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	Stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **slay** *in a quote* | past | My wicked mother | the bird *= bird* |  |  |  |  | vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Patient |
| 2 | **eat** *in a quote* | past | My dear father | the bird *= bird* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Patient |
| 3 | **love** *in a quote* | present | the bird *= bird* | Sits |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer sit=Stimulus |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* *in a quote* | present | the bird *= bird* |  |  | Stick |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme above stick=Location |

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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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