---
title: “Nonsense!” said his wife, “what in the world do you mean?” — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Nonsense!” said his wife, “what in the world do you mean?” Who acts: wife, you. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, sentence 171

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“Nonsense!” said his wife, “what in the world do you mean?”

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**Who acts:** wife, you · **What happens:** say, mean · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, you), 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:pg3282:33:171
# text = “Nonsense!” said his wife, “what in the world do you mean?”
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=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
14	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Nur's wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **mean** *in a quote* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |

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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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