---
title: "Then what, I pray thee, dost thou want here, and what may thy busin… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Then what, I pray thee, dost thou want here, and what may thy business be?" Who acts: Friend, thou, business. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/23/59/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 9, sentence 59

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"Then what, I pray thee, dost thou want here, and what may thy business be?"

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**Who acts:** Friend, thou, business · **What happens:** pray, do, want, be · **To what, where:** thee · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Friend, thou, business), 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:pg14241:23:59
# text = "Then what, I pray thee, dost thou want here, and what may thy business be?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	pray	pray	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	_
7	thee	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	dost	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
10	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	11	nsubj	_	_
11	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
12	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	obj	_	_
16	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pray** *in a quote* | present | Friend | thee |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | present | Friend *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **want** *in a quote* | infinitive | thou |  |  | here |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **be** *in a quote* | may | thy business |  |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=Theme |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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