---
title: 'You could not have asked a better person,' answered Jack cheerfully. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'You could not have asked a better person,' answered Jack cheerfully. Who acts: You. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 20, sentence 26

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'You could not have asked a better person,' answered Jack cheerfully.

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**Who acts:** You · **What happens:** not ask, answer · **To what, where:** better person, Jack

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You), 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:pg3027:20:26
# text = 'You could not have asked a better person,' answered Jack cheerfully.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux	_	_
6	asked	ask	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	amod	_	_
9	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
12	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
13	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	cheerfully	cheerfully	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **ask** *speech: ask* | could · perfect | You |  | a better person |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent person=Recipient |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | Jack |  |  | cheerfully *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent jack=Eventuality |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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