---
title: ‘Who knows whether we shall get anything better to eat to-day!’ said… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Who knows whether we shall get anything better to eat to-day!’ said the servant, and he shot the raven and carried it off. Who acts: we, servant. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Riddle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Riddle, sentence 20

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‘Who knows whether we shall get anything better to eat to-day!’ said the servant, and he shot the raven and carried it off.

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**Who acts:** we, servant · **What happens:** know, get, eat, say, shoot, carry off · **To what, where:** anything, servant, raven · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Riddle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we, servant), 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:pg7277:47:20
# text = ‘Who knows whether we shall get anything better to eat to-day!’ said the servant, and he shot the raven and carried it off.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knows	know	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
4	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
8	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	7	obj	_	_
9	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	xcomp	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
17	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	servant	servant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	shot	shoot	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	parataxis	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	raven	raven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	carried	carry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	conj	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obj	_	_
29	off	off	ADP	RP	_	27	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **get** | shall | we | anything |  |  |  | good *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer anything=Stimulus |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | we *not said here* |  |  |  | day |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the servant |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **shoot** | past | servant | the raven |  |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent raven=Theme |
| 6 | **carry off** | past | servant *not said here* | raven |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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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