---
title: ‘Now,’ said the merchants of Bremen, ‘these Germans cannot be other… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Now,’ said the merchants of Bremen, ‘these Germans cannot be other than the descendants of the lost children of Hamel.’ Who acts: other, Germans. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Ratcatcher, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/32/98/)

<!-- 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 Ratcatcher](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/32/) / 98

# The Red Fairy Book, The Ratcatcher, sentence 98

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Now,’ said the merchants of Bremen, ‘these Germans cannot be other than the descendants of the lost children of Hamel.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** other, Germans · **What happens:** say, not be, lose · **To what, where:** merchants · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Ratcatcher. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (other, Germans), 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:pg540:32:98
# text = ‘Now,’ said the merchants of Bremen, ‘these Germans cannot be other than the descendants of the lost children of Hamel.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	merchants	merchant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	Bremen	Bremen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
13	Germans	german	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	cop	_	_
17	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	nsubj	_	_
18	than	than	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	descendants	descendant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	24	amod	_	_
24	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	Hamel	Hamel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | other | the merchants of Bremen |  |  | now |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent merchant=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **is** | can | this Germans |  |  |  |  | than the descendants of the lost children of Hamel; other *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **lose** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V»: agent=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.

<!-- 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 97](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/32/97/)
- next →: [sentence 99](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/32/99/)
- ↑ back to [The Ratcatcher](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/32/)