---
title: ‘There’s the Master Thief, mother!’ said the Governor, nudging his w… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘There’s the Master Thief, mother!’ said the Governor, nudging his wife. Who acts: Governor. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief, 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/pg540/9/230/)

<!-- 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 Master Thief](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/) / 230

# The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 230

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘There’s the Master Thief, mother!’ said the Governor, nudging his wife.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Governor · **What happens:** say, nudge · **To what, where:** wife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Governor), 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:pg540:9:230
# text = ‘There’s the Master Thief, mother!’ said the Governor, nudging his wife.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	Master	Master	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	Thief	Thief	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Governor	Governor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	nudging	nudge	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Governor |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **nudge** | gerund | the Governor *not said here* | Governor's wife |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Theme |

<!-- .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 229](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/229/)
- next →: [sentence 231](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/231/)
- ↑ back to [The Master Thief](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/)