---
title: The man thought the witch was really his wife, and he did not know t… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The man thought the witch was really his wife, and he did not know that his wife was the sheep; so he went home with her, glad at heart because his sheep was found. Who acts: man, witch, Ho, wife. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch, with its dependency tree and th
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/9/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Wonderful Birch](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/) / 9

# The Red Fairy Book, The Wonderful Birch, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The man thought the witch was really his wife, and he did not know that his wife was the sheep; so he went home with her, glad at heart because his sheep was found.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, witch, Ho, wife · **What happens:** think, be, not know, go, find · **To what, where:** wife, sheep · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (man, witch, Ho, wife), 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:pg540:14:9
# text = The man thought the witch was really his wife, and he did not know that his wife was the sheep; so he went home with her, glad at heart because his sheep was found.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	really	really	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
23	so	so	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
26	home	home	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
27	with	with	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
30	glad	glad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	_
31	at	at	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	_
33	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	37	mark	_	_
34	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	35	nmod:poss	_	_
35	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	37	nsubj:pass	_	_
36	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	37	aux:pass	_	_
37	found	find	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	25	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the man |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the witch | Ho's wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | Ho |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is a** | past | Ho's wife | the sheep |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **go** | past | Ho |  |  |  |  | with witch; home *property* | vn help-72.1-2 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent with she=Beneficiary |
| 6 | **find** | past · passive |  | Ho's sheep |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: subject=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/8/)
- next →: [sentence 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/10/)
- ↑ back to [The Wonderful Birch](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/)