---
title: ‘Oh, but not one too many,’ smiled his wife, coming up with a crowd… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh, but not one too many,’ smiled his wife, coming up with a crowd more children clinging to her skirts. Who acts: one, more children. 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 37

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‘Oh, but not one too many,’ smiled his wife, coming up with a crowd more children clinging to her skirts.

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**Who acts:** one, more children · **What happens:** smile, come up, cling · **To what, where:** wife

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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 (one, more children), 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:pg641:13:37
# text = ‘Oh, but not one too many,’ smiled his wife, coming up with a crowd more children clinging to her skirts.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	11	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nsubj	_	_
7	too	too	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
11	smiled	smile	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
16	up	up	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	crowd	crowd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	21	amod	_	_
21	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
22	clinging	cling	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	acl	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	skirts	skirt	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **smile** | past | one | Stan's wife |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Topic |
| 2 | **come up** | gerund | one *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with more children | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **cling** | gerund | more children *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to crowd's skirts | vn cling-22.5 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme to skirt=Co-Theme |

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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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