---
title: Well, he was very vexed, but he thought better to say nothing. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Well, he was very vexed, but he thought better to say nothing. Who acts: master. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and His Master, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Jack and His Master, sentence 123

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Well, he was very vexed, but he thought better to say nothing.

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**Who acts:** master · **What happens:** vex, think, say · **To what, where:** master, nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and His Master. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (master), 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:pg7885:24:123
# text = Well, he was very vexed, but he thought better to say nothing.
1	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	vexed	vex	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
11	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	xcomp	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
14	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **vex** | past · passive |  | master |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | master |  |  |  |  | good *property* | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | master *not said here* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |

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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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