---
title: “A trick?” repeated Father Grumbler, who began to understand what ha… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “A trick?” repeated Father Grumbler, who began to understand what had happened. Who acts: trick, Father. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10, 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/pg3282/10/4/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 4

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“A trick?” repeated Father Grumbler, who began to understand what had happened.

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**Who acts:** trick, Father · **What happens:** repeat, begin, understand, happen · **To what, where:** Father · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (trick, Father), 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:pg3282:10:4
# text = “A trick?” repeated Father Grumbler, who began to understand what had happened.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	trick	trick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	repeated	repeat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
7	Father	Father	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	Grumbler	Grumbler	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **repeat** | participle | a trick *not said here* | Father |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent father=Eventuality |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Father |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **understand** | to-infinitive | Father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **happen** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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