---
title: The wife could say nothing, but she put the food at once on the tabl… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The wife could say nothing, but she put the food at once on the table, and they ate the fish, the roast meat, and the cakes. Who acts: wife, cakes. 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 clau
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, sentence 60

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The wife could say nothing, but she put the food at once on the table, and they ate the fish, the roast meat, and the cakes.

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**Who acts:** wife, cakes · **What happens:** say, put, eat · **To what, where:** nothing, food, table, fish · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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, cakes), 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:pg640:41:60
# text = The wife could say nothing, but she put the food at once on the table, and they ate the fish, the roast meat, and the cakes.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	9	obl	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	roast	roast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	cakes	cake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | could | the wife | nothing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **put** | past | wife | the food |  | the table |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent food=Theme on table=Destination |
| 3 | **eat** | past | cakes *= cake* | the fish and the roast meat |  |  |  | the cakes *obl* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fish=Patient |

<!-- .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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