---
title: ‘This is how it all happened, Mr. Secretary,’ cried the wife. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘This is how it all happened, Mr. Secretary,’ cried the wife. Who acts: This, it. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water., sentence 98

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‘This is how it all happened, Mr. Secretary,’ cried the wife.

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**Who acts:** This, it · **What happens:** be, happen, cry · **To what, where:** Secretary, wife

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, it), 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:pg641:16:98
# text = ‘This is how it all happened, Mr. Secretary,’ cried the wife.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	all	all	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	Mr.	Mr.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod:desc	_	_
10	Secretary	Secretary	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
13	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | This |  |  |  |  | how *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **happen** | past | it | Secretary  Mr. |  |  |  | all *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past |  | the wife |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Topic |

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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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