---
title: In a little the troll came home, and his wife asked him to go and bu… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In a little the troll came home, and his wife asked him to go and buy some fish. Who acts: wife. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 137

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In a little the troll came home, and his wife asked him to go and buy some fish.

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** come, ask, go, buy · **To what, where:** little troll, mound, fish

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife), 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:pg5615:16:137
# text = In a little the troll came home, and his wife asked him to go and buy some fish.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	troll	troll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
6	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	home	home	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	buy	buy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
18	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	19	det	_	_
19	fish	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  |  |  | the little troll |  | home *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in troll=Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | mound's wife |  | mound |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **go** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | mound's wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **buy** | infinitive | mound's wife *not said here* | some fish |  |  |  |  | vn accept-77.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fish=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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