---
title: “It certainly smells of fish,” he said, and then he stopped, for a s… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “It certainly smells of fish,” he said, and then he stopped, for a sudden thought had come to him. Who acts: basket, matter, sudden thought. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 65

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“It certainly smells of fish,” he said, and then he stopped, for a sudden thought had come to him.

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**Who acts:** basket, matter, sudden thought · **What happens:** smell, say, stop, come · **To what, where:** matter · **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 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (basket, matter, sudden thought), 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:pg3282:9:65
# text = “It certainly smells of fish,” he said, and then he stopped, for a sudden thought had come to him.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	smells	smell	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	stopped	stop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
17	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	sudden	sudden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	15	conj	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **smell** *in a quote* | present | basket |  |  |  |  | of fish; certainly *property* | vn smell\_emission-43.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | matter |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **stop** | past | matter |  |  |  | then |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **come** | past · perfect | a sudden thought |  | matter |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to he=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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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