---
title: One day the man, whose name was Simon, said to his wife, whose name… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One day the man, whose name was Simon, said to his wife, whose name was Susan, ‘Why should we keep our old cat any longer? Who acts: name, man, we, Simon. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The War of the Wolf and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The War of the Wolf and the Fox, sentence 2

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One day the man, whose name was Simon, said to his wife, whose name was Susan, ‘Why should we keep our old cat any longer?

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**Who acts:** name, man, we, Simon, wife · **What happens:** be, say, keep, name · **To what, where:** Simon, Susan, old cat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The War of the Wolf and the Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (name, man, we, Simon), 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:pg7277:53:2
# text = One day the man, whose name was Simon, said to his wife, whose name was Susan, ‘Why should we keep our old cat any longer?
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	Simon	Simon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	Susan	Susan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
23	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	conj	_	_
26	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
27	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	_
29	any	any	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
30	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	25	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Simon's name | Simon |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the man and Simon |  |  |  | day |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past |  | Susan |  |  |  | to Simon's wife and Simon's wife and wife's name's name | tree rules |
| 4 | **keep** | should | we | our old cat |  |  |  | long *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cat=Theme |
| 5 | **name** |  | Simon |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |
| 6 | **name** |  | Simon's wife and Simon's wife and name's name |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=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.

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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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