---
title: ‘Listen, husband; the cottage is much too small, and so is the yard… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Listen, husband; the cottage is much too small, and so is the yard and the garden; the flounder might just as well have sent us a larger house. Who acts: you, cottage. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Listen, husband; the cottage is much too small, and so is the yard and the garden; the flounder might just as well have sent us a larger house.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, cottage · **What happens:** listen, be, send · **To what, where:** husband, yard, flounder

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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 (you, cottage), 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:pg7277:54:39
# text = ‘Listen, husband; the cottage is much too small, and so is the yard and the garden; the flounder might just as well have sent us a larger house.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Listen	listen	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cottage	cottage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
8	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
9	much	much	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
10	too	too	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	yard	yard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	parataxis	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	garden	garden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	29	punct	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	flounder	flounder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj:pass	_	_
24	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
25	just	just	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
26	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	29	cc	_	_
27	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	26	fixed	_	_
28	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
29	sent	send	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	advcl	_	_
30	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	29	obj	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	larger	large	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	33	amod	_	_
33	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **listen** | imperative | you *not said here* | husband |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | present | the cottage |  |  |  |  | small *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | present |  | the yard and the garden |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **send** | might · perfect · passive |  | the flounder |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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