---
title: But the wife said that her husband was a greater fool for letting he… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But the wife said that her husband was a greater fool for letting her have the money. Who acts: wife, husband. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack Hannaford, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Jack Hannaford, sentence 28

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But the wife said that her husband was a greater fool for letting her have the money.

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**Who acts:** wife, husband · **What happens:** say, be, let, have · **To what, where:** greater fool, wife, money · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack Hannaford. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, husband), 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:pg7439:13:28
# text = But the wife said that her husband was a greater fool for letting her have the money.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	greater	great	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	amod	_	_
11	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	_
12	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	letting	let	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
14	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	money	money	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past | wife's husband | a greater fool |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **let** | gerund | the wife *not said here* | wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **have** | infinitive | wife *not said here* | the money |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent money=Patient |

<!-- .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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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