---
title: ‘I don’t know how that may be,’ said she; ‘never is a long time. — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I don’t know how that may be,’ said she; ‘never is a long time. Who acts: I, that, wife. 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 60

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‘I don’t know how that may be,’ said she; ‘never is a long time.

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**Who acts:** I, that, wife · **What happens:** not know, be, say, not be · **To what, where:** long time · **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 (I, that, wife), 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:pg2591:11:60
# text = ‘I don’t know how that may be,’ said she; ‘never is a long time.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
6	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	nsubj	_	_
8	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | present · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **be** | may | that |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **not** **is a** | present |  | a long time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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