---
title: “What object have you,” the old man asked, “in thus consuming your l… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What object have you,” the old man asked, “in thus consuming your life?” Who acts: object, old man. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/2/103/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/2/) / 103

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 103

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What object have you,” the old man asked, “in thus consuming your life?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** object, old man · **What happens:** have, ask, consume · **To what, where:** life · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (object, old man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3282:2:103
# text = “What object have you,” the old man asked, “in thus consuming your life?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	3	det	_	_
3	object	object	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	consuming	consume	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	ccomp	_	_
17	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *in a quote* | present | what object |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **consume** *in a quote* | gerund |  | your life |  |  |  | thus *property* | vn consume-66 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Asset |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 102](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/2/102/)
- next →: [sentence 104](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/2/104/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/2/)