---
title: ‘We have no cow,’ Matte answered; ‘but we have good smoked herring,… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘We have no cow,’ Matte answered; ‘but we have good smoked herring, and can cook them in a couple of hours.’ Who acts: We, Matte. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 58

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‘We have no cow,’ Matte answered; ‘but we have good smoked herring, and can cook them in a couple of hours.’

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**Who acts:** We, Matte · **What happens:** have, answer, smoke, cook · **To what, where:** cow, good smoked herring, Matte

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, Matte), 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:pg3454:23:58
# text = ‘We have no cow,’ Matte answered; ‘but we have good smoked herring, and can cook them in a couple of hours.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	det	_	_
5	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
8	Matte	Matte	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
15	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
16	smoked	smoke	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	amod	_	_
17	herring	herring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	cook	cook	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	hours	hour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | We | no cow |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cow=Patient |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Matte |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **have** | present | we | good smoked herring |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent herring=Patient |
| 4 | **smoke** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **cook** | can | we *not said here* | Matte |  |  |  | in a couple of hours | vn cooking-45.3 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent they=Patient in couple=Instrument |

<!-- .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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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