---
title: He seated it in front of the fire, and tried to think he had his wif… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He seated it in front of the fire, and tried to think he had his wife back again. Who acts: husband. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dead Wife(20), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dead Wife(20), sentence 6

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He seated it in front of the fire, and tried to think he had his wife back again.

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**Who acts:** husband · **What happens:** seat, try, think, have · **To what, where:** life, front, wife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dead Wife(20). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (husband), 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:pg640:27:6
# text = He seated it in front of the fire, and tried to think he had his wife back again.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	seated	seat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	back	back	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	again	again	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seat** | past | husband | life |  | front of the fire |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent it=Value in front=Location |
| 2 | **try** | past | husband *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | husband *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **have** | past | husband | husband's wife |  |  | again |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Patient |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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