---
title: “His mother?” said the king; “you are too old, surely, to have so yo… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “His mother?” said the king; “you are too old, surely, to have so young a son!” Who acts: mother, you. 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.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, sentence 81

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“His mother?” said the king; “you are too old, surely, to have so young a son!”

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**Who acts:** mother, you · **What happens:** say, be, have · **To what, where:** king, young son · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (mother, 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:pg3282:33:81
# text = “His mother?” said the king; “you are too old, surely, to have so young a son!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	too	too	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
20	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: express* | past | king's mother | the king |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  | old, surely *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | a young son |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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