---
title: After a little while the prince said to his wife: “My life is in the… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: After a little while the prince said to his wife: “My life is in the hands of three creatures—a crocodile, a serpent, and a dog.” Who acts: prince, life. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 58

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
After a little while the prince said to his wife: “My life is in the hands of three creatures—a crocodile, a serpent, and a dog.”

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**Who acts:** prince, life · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** wife, hands · **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 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, life), 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:pg3282:25:58
# text = After a little while the prince said to his wife: “My life is in the hands of three creatures—a crocodile, a serpent, and a dog.”
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	nummod	_	_
21	creatures	creature	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	crocodile	crocodile	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the prince |  | prince's wife and a dog |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to wife=Recipient |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | My life |  |  | the hands |  | of three creatures and a crocodile and a serpent | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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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