---
title: ‘Alas! wife,’ said the fisherman, falling on his knees before her, ‘… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Alas! wife,’ said the fisherman, falling on his knees before her, ‘the flounder cannot do that. Who acts: wife, 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 190

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‘Alas! wife,’ said the fisherman, falling on his knees before her, ‘the flounder cannot do that.

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**Who acts:** wife, flounder · **What happens:** say, fall, not do · **To what, where:** fisherman, knees, that · **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, flounder), 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:pg7277:54:190
# text = ‘Alas! wife,’ said the fisherman, falling on his knees before her, ‘the flounder cannot do that.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	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	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	falling	fall	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
12	on	on	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	knees	knee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
15	before	before	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	flounder	flounder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
21	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
24	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | 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 | **fall** | gerund | wife *not said here* |  |  | man's knees | before wife |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on knee=Location |
| 3 | **not** **do** | can | the flounder | that |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |

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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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