---
title: (as if they should ask a painter ‘Are you painting anything now?’ or… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: (as if they should ask a painter ‘Are you painting anything now?’ or a lawyer ‘Have you any cases at present?’). Who acts: ladies, you. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/1/9/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 9

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(as if they should ask a painter ‘Are you painting anything now?’ or a lawyer ‘Have you any cases at present?’).

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**Who acts:** ladies, you · **What happens:** ask, paint, have · **To what, where:** painter, anything, lawyer, present

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ladies, 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:pg3454:1:9
# text = (as if they should ask a painter ‘Are you painting anything now?’ or a lawyer ‘Have you any cases at present?’).
1	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	painter	painter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	painting	paint	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
13	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	obj	_	_
14	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	lawyer	lawyer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
20	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	Have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
22	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
23	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	24	det	_	_
24	cases	case	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	_
25	at	at	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	present	present	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | should | ladies *= lady* | a painter |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent painter=Recipient |
| 2 | **paint** | present · progressive | you | anything |  |  | now |  | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent anything=Destination |
| 3 | **have** | present | you | a lawyer |  | present |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent case=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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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