---
title: ‘Is there any way of getting my own wife back from the wood again?’… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Is there any way of getting my own wife back from the wood again?’ asked the Prince. Who acts: way. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Wonderful Birch, sentence 150

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‘Is there any way of getting my own wife back from the wood again?’ asked the Prince.

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**Who acts:** way · **What happens:** be, get, ask · **To what, where:** way, own wife, wood, Prince · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (way), 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:pg540:14:150
# text = ‘Is there any way of getting my own wife back from the wood again?’ asked the Prince.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
4	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	5	det	_	_
5	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	ccomp	_	_
6	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	getting	get	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	back	back	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
12	from	from	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
15	again	again	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
18	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | any way |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **get** | gerund | any way *not said here* | my own wife |  | the wood | again |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent wife=Theme from wood=Source |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | the Prince |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent prince=Recipient |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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