---
title: The thief bade him good-day, saying: “Honest man, how can you possib… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The thief bade him good-day, saying: “Honest man, how can you possibly see to stitch at your age?” Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 74

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The thief bade him good-day, saying: “Honest man, how can you possibly see to stitch at your age?”

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** say, see, stitch · **To what, where:** age · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg503:34:74
# text = The thief bade him good-day, saying: “Honest man, how can you possibly see to stitch at your age?”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	thief	thief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	bade	bade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Honest	honest	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	stitch	stitch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **see** *in a quote* | can | you |  |  |  |  | possibly *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **stitch** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  | at your age |  | vn tape-22.4 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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