---
title: He asked where his fault lay, and said that every night my wife took… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He asked where his fault lay, and said that every night my wife took one or other of these horses and rode away, and came back only just before dawn. Who acts: Tiger, fault, wife. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 5, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 100

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He asked where his fault lay, and said that every night my wife took one or other of these horses and rode away, and came back only just before dawn.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Tiger, fault, wife · **What happens:** ask, lie, say, take, ride away, come back · **To what, where:** one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tiger, fault, wife), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3282:442`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3282:5:100
# text = He asked where his fault lay, and said that every night my wife took one or other of these horses and rode away, and came back only just before dawn.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	fault	fault	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
11	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	det	_	_
12	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl:unmarked	_	_
13	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	obj	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	conj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	21	det	_	_
21	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	rode	ride	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
24	away	away	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
28	back	back	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
29	only	only	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
30	just	just	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
31	before	before	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	dawn	dawn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	_
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Tiger |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **lie** | past | Tiger's fault |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Tiger *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **take** | past | my wife | one of this horses |  |  | night |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme |
| 5 | **ride away** | past | my wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **come back** | past | my wife *not said here* |  |  |  | dawn |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **fault** |  | Tiger |  |  |  |  |  | nom fault «act transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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