---
title: “How can I tell the sultan that a head without a body wishes to beco… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “How can I tell the sultan that a head without a body wishes to become his son-in-law? Who acts: old woman, head. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22, 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/pg3282/22/30/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 30

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“How can I tell the sultan that a head without a body wishes to become his son-in-law?

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**Who acts:** old woman, head · **What happens:** tell, wish, become · **To what, where:** sultan, son · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old woman, head), 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:pg3282:22:30
# text = “How can I tell the sultan that a head without a body wishes to become his son-in-law?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	sultan	sultan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
11	without	without	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	wishes	wish	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | can | the old woman *= woman* | the sultan |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent sultan=Recipient |
| 2 | **wish** *in a quote* | present | a head without a body |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **become** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | a head without a body *not said here* | wealth's son in law |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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