---
title: He opened it, and the snuff-box said to him in the Spanish language,… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He opened it, and the snuff-box said to him in the Spanish language, ‘What do you want?’ Who acts: man, snuff box, you. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snuff-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Snuff-box, sentence 3

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He opened it, and the snuff-box said to him in the Spanish language, ‘What do you want?’

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**Who acts:** man, snuff box, you · **What happens:** open, say, want · **To what, where:** box, man, Spanish language · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snuff-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, snuff box, you), 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:pg7277:20:3
# text = He opened it, and the snuff-box said to him in the Spanish language, ‘What do you want?’
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	snuff	snuff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	Spanish	Spanish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	22	obj	_	_
20	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | past | man | box |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location it=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the snuff box |  | man | the Spanish language |  |  | vn indicate-78-1 «NP V PP.recipient whether/if S»: agent=Pivot to he=Experiencer clause=Topic |
| 3 | **want** | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot what=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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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