---
title: ‘I caught a flounder who said he was an enchanted prince, so I let h… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I caught a flounder who said he was an enchanted prince, so I let him swim away again.’ Who acts: I, flounder. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I caught a flounder who said he was an enchanted prince, so I let him swim away again.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, flounder · **What happens:** catch, say, enchant, be, let, swim away · **To what, where:** flounder, enchanted prince · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, flounder), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:54:13
# text = ‘I caught a flounder who said he was an enchanted prince, so I let him swim away again.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	flounder	flounder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	enchanted	enchant	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
12	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	let	let	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	away	away	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	again	again	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** | past | I | a flounder |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flounder=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a flounder |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **enchant** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is a** | past | flounder | a enchanted prince |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **let** | past | I | flounder |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **swim away** | infinitive | flounder *not said here* |  |  |  | again | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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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