---
title: And when the king asked her what news there was in the town she only… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And when the king asked her what news there was in the town she only answered: Who acts: king, procession. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 40

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And when the king asked her what news there was in the town she only answered:

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**Who acts:** king, procession · **What happens:** ask, answer · **To what, where:** procession, town

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, procession), 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:pg3454:22:40
# text = And when the king asked her what news there was in the town she only answered:
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
8	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	only	only	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the king |  | procession |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | procession | the town *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent town=Eventuality |

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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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