---
title: His companions agreed, and then he told his wife to put a mattress i… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: His companions agreed, and then he told his wife to put a mattress in the stable. Who acts: companions, donkey. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17, 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/pg5615/17/49/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 49

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His companions agreed, and then he told his wife to put a mattress in the stable.

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**Who acts:** companions, donkey · **What happens:** agree, tell, put · **To what, where:** wife, mattress, stable · **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 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (companions, donkey), 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:pg5615:17:49
# text = His companions agreed, and then he told his wife to put a mattress in the stable.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	companions	companion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	agreed	agree	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	mattress	mattress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	stable	stable	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **agree** *speech: agree* | past | donkey's companions |  |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | donkey |  | donkey's wife |  | then |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent wife=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **put** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | a mattress |  | the stable |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent mattress=Theme in stable=Destination |

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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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