---
title: What would they have for their next dinner, and, what was more impor… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: What would they have for their next dinner, and, what was more important still, who would there be to eat it? Who acts: lies. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, 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/pg2435/24/45/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 45

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What would they have for their next dinner, and, what was more important still, who would there be to eat it?

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**Who acts:** lies · **What happens:** have, be, eat · **To what, where:** dinner

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lies), 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:pg2435:24:45
# text = What would they have for their next dinner, and, what was more important still, who would there be to eat it?
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	obj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
7	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	15	advmod	_	_
15	important	important	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	_
16	still	still	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	21	advmod	_	_
21	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | would | lies *= lie* |  |  |  |  | for lies's next dinner | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  | still | important *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | would |  |  |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **eat** | to-infinitive |  | dinner |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |

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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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