---
title: Well, Hans could do that; but what would his wages be? — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Well, Hans could do that; but what would his wages be? Who acts: Hans, wages. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38, 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/pg3027/38/97/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 38, sentence 97

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Well, Hans could do that; but what would his wages be?

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**Who acts:** Hans, wages · **What happens:** do, be · **To what, where:** that

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hans, wages), 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:pg3027:38:97
# text = Well, Hans could do that; but what would his wages be?
1	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	obj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	wages	wage	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | could | Hans | that |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |
| 2 | **be** | would | Hans's wages |  |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=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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