---
title: “But what shall we do now?” asked he. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “But what shall we do now?” asked he. Who acts: we. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, 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/pg3282/16/27/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 27

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“But what shall we do now?” asked he.

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** do, ask · **To what, where:** Masilo · **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 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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:pg3282:16:27
# text = “But what shall we do now?” asked he.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	_
4	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
7	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | shall | we |  |  |  | now |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | Masilo |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP that S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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