---
title: "What gift," said his wife, "would you give me that I could make you… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "What gift," said his wife, "would you give me that I could make you laugh?" Who acts: gift, you. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Gold-tree and Silver-tree, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Gold-tree and Silver-tree, sentence 44

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"What gift," said his wife, "would you give me that I could make you laugh?"

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**Who acts:** gift, you · **What happens:** gift, say, give, make, laugh · **To what, where:** wife, gift · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Gold-tree and Silver-tree. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gift, you), 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:pg7885:15:44
# text = "What gift," said his wife, "would you give me that I could make you laugh?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	nsubj	_	_
3	gift	gift	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
14	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **gift** *in a quote* |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | gift | gift's wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **give** *in a quote* | would | you |  | gift |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |
| 4 | **make** *in a quote* | could | gift |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **laugh** *in a quote* | infinitive | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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:** «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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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