---
title: I wish to ask you a question, and I beg you to answer truthfully. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I wish to ask you a question, and I beg you to answer truthfully. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I wish to ask you a question, and I beg you to answer truthfully.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** wish, ask, beg, answer · **To what, where:** question, you

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg2435:4:48
# text = I wish to ask you a question, and I beg you to answer truthfully.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	wish	wish	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	beg	beg	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
15	truthfully	truthfully	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wish** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | a question | you |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **beg** *speech: request* | present | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent you=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **answer** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | truthfully *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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