---
title: ‘Why did you refuse to sell my wife a pumpkin yesterday when she wan… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Why did you refuse to sell my wife a pumpkin yesterday when she wanted one?’ he asked. Who acts: you, sister, husband. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 20, 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/pg3454/20/83/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 83

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Why did you refuse to sell my wife a pumpkin yesterday when she wanted one?’ he asked.

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**Who acts:** you, sister, husband · **What happens:** refuse, not sell, want, ask · **To what, where:** wife, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, sister, husband), 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:pg3454:20:83
# text = ‘Why did you refuse to sell my wife a pumpkin yesterday when she wanted one?’ he asked.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	refuse	refuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	ccomp	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	sell	sell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	pumpkin	pumpkin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	yesterday	yesterday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **refuse** | past · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **sell** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | my wife |  |  | yesterday |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Theme |
| 3 | **want** | past | sister | one |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot one=Theme |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | husband |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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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