---
title: ‘But, wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘how can you be king--the fish cann… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But, wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘how can you be king--the fish cannot make you a king?’ Who acts: wife, you, fish. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 43

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‘But, wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘how can you be king--the fish cannot make you a king?’

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**Who acts:** wife, you, fish · **What happens:** say, be, not make · **To what, where:** fisherman, king, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, you, fish), 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:pg2591:11:43
# text = ‘But, wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘how can you be king--the fish cannot make you a king?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fisherman	fisherman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
13	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	cop	_	_
16	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
20	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	parataxis	_	_
23	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | wife | the fisherman |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent fisherman=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** | can | you | king |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **make** | can | the fish | a king | you |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: agent=Asset you=Beneficiary king=Product |

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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:** «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (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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