---
title: But no use; they only spoiled their feet, and were curing them for m… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But no use; they only spoiled their feet, and were curing them for months afterwards. Who acts: use. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fair, Brown, and Trembling, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Fair, Brown, and Trembling, sentence 88

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But no use; they only spoiled their feet, and were curing them for months afterwards.

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**Who acts:** use · **What happens:** spoil, cure · **To what, where:** feet

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fair, Brown, and Trembling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (use), 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:pg7885:23:88
# text = But no use; they only spoiled their feet, and were curing them for months afterwards.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	spoiled	spoil	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	curing	cure	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	months	month	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
17	afterwards	afterwards	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spoil** | past | no use | feet's feet |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cure** | past · progressive | no use *not said here* | feet *= foot* |  |  | month | afterwards *property* | vn free-10.6.3-1-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Causer they=Source |

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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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