---
title: ‘What!’ said Hans, ‘can twelve men not move that stone?’ — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What!’ said Hans, ‘can twelve men not move that stone?’ Who acts: twelve men. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/13/4/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 4

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‘What!’ said Hans, ‘can twelve men not move that stone?’

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**Who acts:** twelve men · **What happens:** say, not move · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (twelve men), 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:pg5615:13:4
# text = ‘What!’ said Hans, ‘can twelve men not move that stone?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj:outer	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
10	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	move	move	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **move** | can | twelve men |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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