---
title: ‘And how can I do that?’ asked the countess. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘And how can I do that?’ asked the countess. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31, 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/pg3454/31/5/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 5

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‘And how can I do that?’ asked the countess.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** do, ask · **To what, where:** that, countess · **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 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg3454:31:5
# text = ‘And how can I do that?’ asked the countess.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	countess	countess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | can | I | that |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  | the countess |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent countess=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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