---
title: ‘No, wife,’ said the fisherman; ‘I can’t ask him that. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘No, wife,’ said the fisherman; ‘I can’t ask him that. Who acts: wife, I. 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 147

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‘No, wife,’ said the fisherman; ‘I can’t ask him that.

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**Who acts:** wife, I · **What happens:** say, not ask · **To what, where:** fisherman, that, pope · **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 (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:pg7277:54:147
# text = ‘No, wife,’ said the fisherman; ‘I can’t ask him that.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fisherman	fisherman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | wife | the fisherman |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent fisherman=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **ask** *speech: ask* | can | I | that | pope |  |  |  | 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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