---
title: Her husband could not see anything to snip at; but then he was so st… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Her husband could not see anything to snip at; but then he was so stupid that was not surprising! Who acts: husband, that. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, 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/pg3282/29/74/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 74

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Her husband could not see anything to snip at; but then he was so stupid that was not surprising!

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**Who acts:** husband, that · **What happens:** not see, snip, be, not be · **To what, where:** anything

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (husband, that), 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:pg3282:29:74
# text = Her husband could not see anything to snip at; but then he was so stupid that was not surprising!
1	Her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	5	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	snip	snip	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	stupid	stupid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	surprising	surprising	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **see** | could | wool's husband | anything |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer anything=Stimulus |
| 2 | **snip** | to-infinitive | wool's husband *not said here* | anything *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | past | husband |  |  |  | then | stupid *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **is** | past | that |  |  |  |  | surprising *property* | tree rules |

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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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