---
title: ‘That cannot possibly be,’ replied the King; ‘how do you mean to pro… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘That cannot possibly be,’ replied the King; ‘how do you mean to prove that?’ Who acts: King, you. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Huntsmen, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Twelve Huntsmen, sentence 25

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‘That cannot possibly be,’ replied the King; ‘how do you mean to prove that?’

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**Who acts:** King, you · **What happens:** not be, reply, mean, prove · **To what, where:** That · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Huntsmen. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, 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:pg7277:43:25
# text = ‘That cannot possibly be,’ replied the King; ‘how do you mean to prove that?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	obl	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
15	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	prove	prove	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **can** | can |  | That |  |  |  | possibly *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the King |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **mean** | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **prove** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | that |  |  |  |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=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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