---
title: The wife received them both very kindly, spread a long table, and ga… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The wife received them both very kindly, spread a long table, and gave them a large plate of porridge. Who acts: wife. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, sentence 51

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The wife received them both very kindly, spread a long table, and gave them a large plate of porridge.

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** receive, spread, give · **To what, where:** meat, long table, large plate

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus. 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:pg640:41:51
# text = The wife received them both very kindly, spread a long table, and gave them a large plate of porridge.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	received	receive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	4	appos	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	kindly	kindly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	spread	spread	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	plate	plate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	porridge	porridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **receive** | past | the wife | meat |  |  |  | kindly *property* | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 2 | **spread** | infinitive | the wife *not said here* | a long table |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location table=Theme |
| 3 | **give** | past | the wife *not said here* | a large plate of porridge | meat |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient plate=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.

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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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