---
title: At this the wives both confessed that they had each wished to prove… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At this the wives both confessed that they had each wished to prove that her husband was stupider than the other. Who acts: people, husband. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 30, 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/pg3282/30/18/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 30, sentence 18

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At this the wives both confessed that they had each wished to prove that her husband was stupider than the other.

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**Who acts:** people, husband · **What happens:** confess, have, wish, prove, be · **To what, where:** each

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people, husband), 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:pg3282:30:18
# text = At this the wives both confessed that they had each wished to prove that her husband was stupider than the other.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
5	both	both	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	confessed	confess	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
10	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	obj	_	_
11	wished	wish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	prove	prove	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
18	stupider	stupid	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	13	xcomp	_	_
19	than	than	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **confess** | past |  |  |  |  |  | at this wives; both *property* | vn confess-37.10 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** | past | people | each |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent each=Patient |
| 3 | **wish** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **prove** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is** | past | wife's husband |  |  |  |  | than the other; stupid *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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