---
title: 'At least,' said they, after a moment's pause, 'we may expect them t… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'At least,' said they, after a moment's pause, 'we may expect them to fetch your wife to her new home?' Who acts: eyes, we. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 21, 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/pg3027/21/8/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 21, sentence 8

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'At least,' said they, after a moment's pause, 'we may expect them to fetch your wife to her new home?'

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**Who acts:** eyes, we · **What happens:** say, expect, fetch · **To what, where:** eyes, wife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eyes, we), 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:pg3027:21:8
# text = 'At least,' said they, after a moment's pause, 'we may expect them to fetch your wife to her new home?'
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	after	after	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	's	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	pause	pause	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	expect	expect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl:relcl	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	fetch	fetch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
22	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
26	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	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 | eyes *= eye* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **expect** | may | we | eyes *= eye* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **fetch** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | eyes *= eye* *not said here* | your wife |  |  |  | to wife's new home | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Theme |

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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:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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