---
title: 'Nonsense!' said her husband; 'women always think they know best. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'Nonsense!' said her husband; 'women always think they know best. Who acts: husband, women. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 39, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 39, sentence 25

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'Nonsense!' said her husband; 'women always think they know best.

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**Who acts:** husband, women · **What happens:** say, think, know · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 39. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (husband, women), 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:pg3027:39:25
# text = 'Nonsense!' said her husband; 'women always think they know best.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nonsense	nonsense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
11	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	12	advmod	_	_
12	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
15	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	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 | Kirsten's husband |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | present | women |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **know** | present | women *= woman* |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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