---
title: ‘What?’ he gasped--‘what is this dreadful thing? — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What?’ he gasped--‘what is this dreadful thing? Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 60

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‘What?’ he gasped--‘what is this dreadful thing?

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** gasp, be · **To what, where:** dreadful thing

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg3454:4:60
# text = ‘What?’ he gasped--‘what is this dreadful thing?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	gasped	gasp	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	nsubj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
12	dreadful	dreadful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **gasp** | past | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** | present |  | this dreadful thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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