---
title: “Were you really not dead after all?” asked they. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Were you really not dead after all?” asked they. Who acts: you, people. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 30, 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/pg3282/30/16/)

<!-- 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 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/30/) / 16

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 30, sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Were you really not dead after all?” asked they.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, people · **What happens:** not be, ask · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, people), 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:pg3282:30:16
# text = “Were you really not dead after all?” asked they.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	really	really	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	ccomp	_	_
7	after	after	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | past | you |  |  |  | after all | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | people |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/30/15/)
- next →: [sentence 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/30/17/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/30/)