---
title: ‘It is time that I took a wife,’ said he, and after long looking he… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘It is time that I took a wife,’ said he, and after long looking he found one. Who acts: briar, time, man. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38, sentence 26

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‘It is time that I took a wife,’ said he, and after long looking he found one.

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**Who acts:** briar, time, man · **What happens:** be, take, say, look, find · **To what, where:** time, wife, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (briar, time, man), 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:pg3454:38:26
# text = ‘It is time that I took a wife,’ said he, and after long looking he found one.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
16	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	20	advcl	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
21	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | briar | time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **take** | past | time |  | a wife |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument wife=Destination |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **look** | gerund | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 5 | **find** | past | man | one |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Topic |

<!-- .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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