---
title: But the cat said to her, “If you will go to yonder cow, and fetch me… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But the cat said to her, “If you will go to yonder cow, and fetch me a saucer of milk, I will kill the rat.” Who acts: cat, rat. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Old Woman and Her Pig, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Old Woman and Her Pig, sentence 31

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the cat said to her, “If you will go to yonder cow, and fetch me a saucer of milk, I will kill the rat.”

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**Who acts:** cat, rat · **What happens:** say, go, fetch, kill · **To what, where:** rat, saucer, cat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Old Woman and Her Pig. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cat, rat), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7439:9:31
# text = But the cat said to her, “If you will go to yonder cow, and fetch me a saucer of milk, I will kill the rat.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	yonder	yonder	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	fetch	fetch	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
19	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	saucer	saucer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
25	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
26	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	conj	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	rat	rat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the cat |  | rat |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **go** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | future | rat |  |  |  |  | to cow | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to cow=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **fetch** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | a saucer of milk | the cat *= cat* |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary saucer=Theme |
| 4 | **kill** *in a quote* | future | the cat *= cat* | the rat |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rat=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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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