---
title: His wife sat straight in front of him, with her hands folded, and sh… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: His wife sat straight in front of him, with her hands folded, and shook her head, and looked at him with an anxious air. Who acts: wife, hands. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 32, 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/pg5615/32/50/)

<!-- 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 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/32/) / 50

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 32, sentence 50

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
His wife sat straight in front of him, with her hands folded, and shook her head, and looked at him with an anxious air.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** wife, hands · **What happens:** sit, fold, shake, look · **To what, where:** front, head

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 32. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, hands), 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:pg5615:32:50
# text = His wife sat straight in front of him, with her hands folded, and shook her head, and looked at him with an anxious air.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	straight	straight	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	folded	fold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	_
24	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	anxious	anxious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | carpenter's wife |  |  | front of carpenter |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in front=Location |
| 2 | **fold** | past | wool's hands |  |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **shake** | past | carpenter's wife *not said here* | wool's head |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 4 | **look** | past | carpenter's wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at carpenter; with a anxious air | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=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 49](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/32/49/)
- next →: [sentence 51](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/32/51/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/32/)