---
title: ‘If your father had that stick, what would he do with it?’ asked he. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘If your father had that stick, what would he do with it?’ asked he. Who acts: father. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 28, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 75

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‘If your father had that stick, what would he do with it?’ asked he.

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**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** have, do, ask · **To what, where:** stick, father

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father), 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:pg3454:28:75
# text = ‘If your father had that stick, what would he do with it?’ asked he.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
6	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	obj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
17	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | your father | that stick |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stick=Patient |
| 2 | **do** | would | father | that stick |  |  |  | with stick | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | father |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |

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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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