---
title: But his wife replied, ‘Don’t do that, for I’m sure she could still c… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But his wife replied, ‘Don’t do that, for I’m sure she could still catch mice.’ Who acts: wife, I. 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 4

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But his wife replied, ‘Don’t do that, for I’m sure she could still catch mice.’

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**Who acts:** wife, I · **What happens:** reply, not do, be, catch · **To what, where:** that, mice · **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 (wife, I), 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:pg7277:53:4
# text = But his wife replied, ‘Don’t do that, for I’m sure she could still catch mice.’
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’m	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	still	still	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
20	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Simon's wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **do** | infinitive · do-support |  | that |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |
| 3 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **catch** | could | wife | mice |  |  | still |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mouse=Theme |

<!-- .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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