---
title: After a time the Queen heard her husband saying one night in his sle… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: After a time the Queen heard her husband saying one night in his sleep: “My lad, make that waistcoat and patch these trousers, or I’ll box your ears.” Who acts: Queen, husband, lad, tailor. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Brave Little Tailor, sentence 127

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
After a time the Queen heard her husband saying one night in his sleep: “My lad, make that waistcoat and patch these trousers, or I’ll box your ears.”

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**Who acts:** Queen, husband, lad, tailor · **What happens:** hear, say, make, box, sleep · **To what, where:** husband, sleep, waistcoat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Queen, husband, lad, tailor), 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:pg503:42:127
# text = After a time the Queen heard her husband saying one night in his sleep: “My lad, make that waistcoat and patch these trousers, or I’ll box your ears.”
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	saying	say	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	xcomp	_	_
10	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl:unmarked	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	sleep	sleep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
16	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	lad	lad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
20	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
21	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	22	det	_	_
22	waistcoat	waistcoat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	patch	patch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	_
25	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	26	det	_	_
26	trousers	trousers	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
28	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
29	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
31	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	parataxis	_	_
32	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	33	nmod:poss	_	_
33	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | the Queen | Queen's husband |  |  | time |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | Queen's husband *not said here* |  |  | husband's sleep | night |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent in sleep=Manner |
| 3 | **make** *in a quote* | infinitive | My lad | that waistcoat and patch |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: agent=Asset waistcoat=Beneficiary trousers=Product |
| 4 | **box** *in a quote* | future | the tailor *= tailor* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **sleep** |  | husband |  |  |  |  |  | nom sleep «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 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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