---
title: ‘Well, if you MUST know,’ said the wife at last, ‘I will tell you. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well, if you MUST know,’ said the wife at last, ‘I will tell you. Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 14

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‘Well, if you MUST know,’ said the wife at last, ‘I will tell you.

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** know, say, tell · **To what, where:** wife, last, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg641:13:14
# text = ‘Well, if you MUST know,’ said the wife at last, ‘I will tell you.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	10	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	MUST	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
20	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *a condition, not said to happen* | must | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the wife |  | last |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | future | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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