---
title: ‘I met a wolf,’ she told the bricklayer, ‘and I broke the bucket acr… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I met a wolf,’ she told the bricklayer, ‘and I broke the bucket across his nose.’ Who acts: I, Zizi. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Canary, sentence 190

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‘I met a wolf,’ she told the bricklayer, ‘and I broke the bucket across his nose.’

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**Who acts:** I, Zizi · **What happens:** meet, tell, break · **To what, where:** wolf, bricklayer, bucket, nose · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Zizi), 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:pg540:40:190
# text = ‘I met a wolf,’ she told the bricklayer, ‘and I broke the bucket across his nose.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	bricklayer	bricklayer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	‘	‘	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	bucket	bucket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	across	across	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | I | a wolf |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wolf=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Zizi | the bricklayer and ‘ |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent bricklayer=Recipient |
| 3 | **break** | past | I | the bucket |  | son's nose |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer bucket=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 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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