---
title: “How can I help weeping at the task set me by the king. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “How can I help weeping at the task set me by the king. Who acts: wood pigeon, task. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg2435/21/32/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 32

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“How can I help weeping at the task set me by the king.

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**Who acts:** wood pigeon, task · **What happens:** help, weep, set · **To what, where:** wood pigeon

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wood pigeon, task), 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:pg2435:21:32
# text = “How can I help weeping at the task set me by the king.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	weeping	weep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	xcomp	_	_
7	at	at	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **help** *in a quote* | can | the wood pigeon *= pigeon* |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **weep** *in a quote* | gerund | the wood pigeon *= pigeon* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **set** *in a quote* | past | the task | the wood pigeon *= pigeon* |  |  |  | by the king | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent i=Theme by king=Destination |

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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:** «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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