---
title: ‘But why should you take all this interest in me?’ asked the peasant… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But why should you take all this interest in me?’ asked the peasant suspiciously. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 37, 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/pg3454/37/33/)

<!-- 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 37](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/37/) / 33

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 37, sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘But why should you take all this interest in me?’ asked the peasant suspiciously.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** take, ask · **To what, where:** interest, peasant suspiciously · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 37. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg3454:37:33
# text = ‘But why should you take all this interest in me?’ asked the peasant suspiciously.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
7	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	9	det:predet	_	_
8	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
9	interest	interest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
14	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	peasant	peasant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	suspiciously	suspiciously	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | should | you | all interest |  |  |  | in me | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent interest=Value in i=Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  | the peasant suspiciously |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent suspiciously=Recipient clause=Topic |

<!-- .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 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/37/32/)
- next →: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/37/34/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 37](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/37/)