---
title: ‘What work art thou upon?’ asked the bishop, drawing rein. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What work art thou upon?’ asked the bishop, drawing rein. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/117/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/) / 117

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 117

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘What work art thou upon?’ asked the bishop, drawing rein.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** ask, draw · **To what, where:** bishop, rein

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3454:35:117
# text = ‘What work art thou upon?’ asked the bishop, drawing rein.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	3	det	_	_
3	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	art	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
5	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	4	obj	_	_
6	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	4	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	bishop	bishop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	drawing	draw	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
14	rein	rein	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  | the bishop |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent bishop=Recipient |
| 2 | **draw** | gerund |  | rein |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rein=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 116](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/116/)
- next →: [sentence 118](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/118/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/)