---
title: You can speak, can you, you ridiculous crab?’ she said, for she was… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: You can speak, can you, you ridiculous crab?’ she said, for she was not quite pleased at the Crab’s remarks. Who acts: You, voice, Crab. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Crab(5), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Golden Crab(5), sentence 11

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You can speak, can you, you ridiculous crab?’ she said, for she was not quite pleased at the Crab’s remarks.

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**Who acts:** You, voice, Crab · **What happens:** speak, crab, say, not be, remark · **To what, where:** remarks · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Crab(5). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, voice, Crab), 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:pg640:7:11
# text = You can speak, can you, you ridiculous crab?’ she said, for she was not quite pleased at the Crab’s remarks.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	ridiculous	ridiculous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	crab	crab	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
20	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	pleased	pleased	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	ccomp	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	Crab	Crab	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	26	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’s	's	PART	POS	_	24	case	_	_
26	remarks	remark	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | can | You |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **crab** |  | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | voice |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **is** | past | voice |  |  | the Crab's remarks |  | pleased *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **remark** |  | the Crab |  |  |  |  |  | nom remark «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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