---
title: But when they inquired of the owl if he knew aught of Mabon he shook… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But when they inquired of the owl if he knew aught of Mabon he shook his head. Who acts: men, animal. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39, 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/pg3454/39/108/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39, sentence 108

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But when they inquired of the owl if he knew aught of Mabon he shook his head.

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**Who acts:** men, animal · **What happens:** inquire, know, shake · **To what, where:** aught, head

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men, animal), 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:pg3454:39:108
# text = But when they inquired of the owl if he knew aught of Mabon he shook his head.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	owl	owl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	aught	aught	PRON	NN	PronType=Ind	10	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	Mabon	Mabon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | men *= man* |  |  |  |  | of the owl | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V PP.recipient how S»: agent=Agent of owl=Recipient |
| 2 | **know** | past | animal | aught |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer aught=Stimulus |
| 3 | **shake** | past | animal | animal's head |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |

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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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