---
title: ‘There is nothing we can possibly call him but Jack my Hedgehog,’ re… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘There is nothing we can possibly call him but Jack my Hedgehog,’ replied the wife. Who acts: nothing, we. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack My Hedgehog, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Jack My Hedgehog, sentence 8

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‘There is nothing we can possibly call him but Jack my Hedgehog,’ replied the wife.

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**Who acts:** nothing, we · **What happens:** be, call, reply · **To what, where:** farmer, wife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack My Hedgehog. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nothing, we), 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:pg7277:48:8
# text = ‘There is nothing we can possibly call him but Jack my Hedgehog,’ replied the wife.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	nsubj	_	_
5	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl:relcl	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	Hedgehog	Hedgehog	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
16	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **call** | can | we | farmer |  |  |  | possibly *property* | vn dub-29.3.2 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme hedgehog=Result |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past |  | the wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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