---
title: ‘Oh, you fools and blockheads!’ cried their wives, ‘how could you ev… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh, you fools and blockheads!’ cried their wives, ‘how could you ever believe for a moment that a goat would do the work of a servant-maid? Who acts: you, fools, goat, servant maid. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/26/73/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Biter Bit, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/26/) / 73

# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 1, sentence 73

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Oh, you fools and blockheads!’ cried their wives, ‘how could you ever believe for a moment that a goat would do the work of a servant-maid?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, fools, goat, servant maid · **What happens:** fool, cry, believe, do, work · **To what, where:** wives, moment

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, fools, goat, servant maid), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:26:73
# text = ‘Oh, you fools and blockheads!’ cried their wives, ‘how could you ever believe for a moment that a goat would do the work of a servant-maid?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	fools	fool	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	blockheads	blockhead	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	19	advmod	_	_
19	believe	believe	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	27	obj	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	goat	goat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
26	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	acl:relcl	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
32	servant	servant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	32	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fool** |  | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | fools and blockheads | goats's wives |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Topic |
| 3 | **believe** | could | you |  |  |  | ever; moment |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **do** | would | a goat | a moment |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **work** |  | a servant maid |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: of=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 72](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/26/72/)
- next →: [sentence 74](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/26/74/)
- ↑ back to [The Biter Bit, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/26/)