---
title: The old man returned the greeting graciously, and asked: “How fare y… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old man returned the greeting graciously, and asked: “How fare you? Who acts: old man, you. 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.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 94

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The old man returned the greeting graciously, and asked: “How fare you?

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**Who acts:** old man, you · **What happens:** return, ask, fare · **To what, where:** greeting · **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 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, 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:pg3282:2:94
# text = The old man returned the greeting graciously, and asked: “How fare you?
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	greeting	greeting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	graciously	graciously	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
14	fare	fare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **return** | past | the old man | the greeting |  |  |  | graciously *property* | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent greeting=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **fare** *in a quote* |  | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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