---
title: ‘We shall require a better house,’ said Maie the following summer; ‘… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘We shall require a better house,’ said Maie the following summer; ‘the old one is too small for ourselves and the men.’ Who acts: We, Maie, old one. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/24/19/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/24/) / 19

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘We shall require a better house,’ said Maie the following summer; ‘the old one is too small for ourselves and the men.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** We, Maie, old one · **What happens:** require, say, follow, be · **To what, where:** better house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, Maie, old one), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3454:24:19
# text = ‘We shall require a better house,’ said Maie the following summer; ‘the old one is too small for ourselves and the men.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	require	require	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	amod	_	_
7	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	Maie	Maie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	following	follow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	amod	_	_
14	summer	summer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	too	too	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	parataxis	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	ourselves	ourselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	22	obl	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **require** | shall | We | a better house |  |  |  |  | vn require-103-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme house=Precondition |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Maie |  |  |  | summer |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **follow** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | present | the old one |  |  |  |  | for ourselves; small *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/24/18/)
- next →: [sentence 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/24/20/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/24/)