---
title: Sigurd was not averse to this, and asked his father where he thought… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Sigurd was not averse to this, and asked his father where he thought it best to look for a wife. Who acts: Sigurd. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), sentence 4

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Sigurd was not averse to this, and asked his father where he thought it best to look for a wife.

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**Who acts:** Sigurd · **What happens:** not be, ask, think, look · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sigurd), 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:pg640:47:4
# text = Sigurd was not averse to this, and asked his father where he thought it best to look for a wife.
1	Sigurd	Sigurd	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	averse	averse	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
12	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	14	advmod	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	expl	_	_
16	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	9	ccomp	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	csubj	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | Sigurd |  |  |  |  | to this; averse *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Sigurd |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **look** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | for a wife | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for wife=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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