---
title: “What are you looking at, Michael?” asked the magpie, who was watchi… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What are you looking at, Michael?” asked the magpie, who was watching him from a bough. Who acts: you, magpie. 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/pg2435/24/55/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 55

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“What are you looking at, Michael?” asked the magpie, who was watching him from a bough.

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**Who acts:** you, magpie · **What happens:** look, ask, watch · **To what, where:** Michael, magpie, bough · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you, magpie), 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:pg2435:24:55
# text = “What are you looking at, Michael?” asked the magpie, who was watching him from a bough.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	obl	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	Michael	Michael	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	magpie	magpie	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	parataxis	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	from	from	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	bough	bough	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** *in a quote* | present · progressive | you | Michael |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the magpie |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **watch** | past · progressive | the magpie | magpie |  | a bough |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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:** «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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