---
title: ‘This would make a beautiful wife for my son,’ said the toad, taking… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘This would make a beautiful wife for my son,’ said the toad, taking up the walnut-shell, with Thumbelina inside, and hopping with it through the window into the garden. Who acts: This. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), with its dependency tree an
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/84/)

<!-- 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 Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/) / 84

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), sentence 84

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘This would make a beautiful wife for my son,’ said the toad, taking up the walnut-shell, with Thumbelina inside, and hopping with it through the window into the garden.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** This · **What happens:** make, say, take up, hop · **To what, where:** beautiful wife, toad, walnut shell, window · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (This), 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:pg640:47:84
# text = ‘This would make a beautiful wife for my son,’ said the toad, taking up the walnut-shell, with Thumbelina inside, and hopping with it through the window into the garden.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	taking	take	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
20	walnut	walnut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	Thumbelina	Thumbelina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	vocative	_	_
26	inside	inside	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
29	hopping	hop	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	conj	_	_
30	with	with	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obl	_	_
32	through	through	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	window	window	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	_
35	into	into	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
36	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	garden	garden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | would | This | a beautiful wife |  |  |  | for my son | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent wife=Product for son=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the toad |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **take up** | gerund |  | the walnut shell |  |  |  | Thumbelina *vocative*; inside *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shell=Theme |
| 4 | **hop** | gerund |  |  |  | the window |  | with toad; into the garden | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into garden=Destination |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 83](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/83/)
- next →: [sentence 85](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/85/)
- ↑ back to [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/)