---
title: Then she asked if they knew anything about the three bulrushes, but… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then she asked if they knew anything about the three bulrushes, but not one of them did. Who acts: woman, crows, one. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 1, 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/pg2435/1/36/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 36

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Then she asked if they knew anything about the three bulrushes, but not one of them did.

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**Who acts:** woman, crows, one · **What happens:** ask, know, do · **To what, where:** anything

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman, crows, one), 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:pg2435:1:36
# text = Then she asked if they knew anything about the three bulrushes, but not one of them did.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
7	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	6	obj	_	_
8	about	about	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	bulrushes	bulrush	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nsubj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nmod	_	_
18	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | woman |  |  |  | then |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **know** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | crows *= crow* | anything |  |  |  | about the three bulrushes | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer anything=Stimulus |
| 3 | **do** | past | one of crows |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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