---
title: I stabbed my wife, and then began to play, and now she is as well as… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I stabbed my wife, and then began to play, and now she is as well as ever.’ Who acts: I, wife. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/17/96/)

<!-- 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 Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/17/) / 96

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 96

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I stabbed my wife, and then began to play, and now she is as well as ever.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, wife · **What happens:** stab, begin, play, be · **To what, where:** wife

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (I, wife), 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:pg5615:17:96
# text = I stabbed my wife, and then began to play, and now she is as well as ever.’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stabbed	stab	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
8	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
16	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	19	cc	_	_
17	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	fixed	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	fixed	_	_
19	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stab** | past | I | my wife |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Patient |
| 2 | **begin** | past | I *not said here* |  |  |  | then |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **play** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **be** | present | wife |  |  |  | now |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 95](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/17/95/)
- next →: [sentence 97](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/17/97/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/17/)