---
title: “I see your wife,” says she, “riding on the outside just so as to ru… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I see your wife,” says she, “riding on the outside just so as to rub against us. Who acts: wife. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 122

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“I see your wife,” says she, “riding on the outside just so as to rub against us.

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** see, say, ride, rub · **To what, where:** wife, outside · **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 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3454:512`): 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:pg3454:6:122
# text = “I see your wife,” says she, “riding on the outside just so as to rub against us.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
4	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
8	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	_
12	riding	ride	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	xcomp	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	outside	outside	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	just	just	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
18	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	rub	rub	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
21	against	against	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** *in a quote* | present | wife | your wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **ride** *in a quote* | gerund | your wife *not said here* |  |  | the outside |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **rub** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | your wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  | against us | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme against we=Destination |

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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:** 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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