---
title: "My business," says Tom, says he, "is to make the beautiful princess… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "My business," says Tom, says he, "is to make the beautiful princess, God bless her, laugh three times." Who acts: business, Tom. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Lad With the Goat-skin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/33/31/)

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Lad With the Goat-skin, sentence 31

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"My business," says Tom, says he, "is to make the beautiful princess, God bless her, laugh three times."

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**Who acts:** business, Tom · **What happens:** say, be, bless, laugh · **To what, where:** princess · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Lad With the Goat-skin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (business, Tom), 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:pg7885:33:31
# text = "My business," says Tom, says he, "is to make the beautiful princess, God bless her, laugh three times."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
6	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	appos	_	_
21	bless	bless	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
22	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	15	parataxis	_	_
25	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	26	nummod	_	_
26	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	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 | My business |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | My business *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Tom |  |  |  |  | make *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **bless** *in a quote* | infinitive | Tom *not said here* | princess |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme |
| 5 | **laugh** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  | time |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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