---
title: ‘Then why do you cry?’ he persisted. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Then why do you cry?’ he persisted. Who acts: you, creeper. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg3454/21/7/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 7

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‘Then why do you cry?’ he persisted.

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**Who acts:** you, creeper · **What happens:** cry, persist

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, creeper), 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:pg3454:21:7
# text = ‘Then why do you cry?’ he persisted.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
3	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	persisted	persist	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  | then |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **persist** | past | creeper |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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