---
title: The letter says ‘at once,’ and ‘ask no questions.’ — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The letter says ‘at once,’ and ‘ask no questions.’ Who acts: letter. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, 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/pg3282/33/173/)

<!-- 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/) / [Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronge…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/33/) / 173

# The Brown Fairy Book, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, sentence 173

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The letter says ‘at once,’ and ‘ask no questions.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** letter · **What happens:** say, ask · **To what, where:** questions · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (letter), 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:pg3282:33:173
# text = The letter says ‘at once,’ and ‘ask no questions.’
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	letter	letter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
12	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	13	det	_	_
13	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | the letter |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | infinitive | the letter *not said here* | no questions |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent question=Recipient |

<!-- .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 172](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/33/172/)
- next →: [sentence 174](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/33/174/)
- ↑ back to [Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/33/)