---
title: "Oh, my poor captain," says they, "we believe you to the nines. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Oh, my poor captain," says they, "we believe you to the nines. Who acts: we. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and His Comrades, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Jack and His Comrades, sentence 89

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"Oh, my poor captain," says they, "we believe you to the nines.

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** say, believe · **To what, where:** marks, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and His Comrades. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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:pg7885:18:89
# text = "Oh, my poor captain," says they, "we believe you to the nines.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	9	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	captain	captain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
9	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	believe	believe	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	nines	nine	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	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 |  | marks *= mark* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **believe** *in a quote* | present | we | you |  |  |  | to the nines | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer you=Stimulus |

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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:** «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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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