---
title: One day, when he was playing in the streets as usual, a stranger ask… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One day, when he was playing in the streets as usual, a stranger asked him his age, and if he was not the son of Mustapha the tailor. Who acts: Aladdin, stranger. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
One day, when he was playing in the streets as usual, a stranger asked him his age, and if he was not the son of Mustapha the tailor.

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**Who acts:** Aladdin, stranger · **What happens:** play, ask, not be · **To what, where:** streets, age, Aladdin, son

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Aladdin, stranger), 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:pg503:12:3
# text = One day, when he was playing in the streets as usual, a stranger asked him his age, and if he was not the son of Mustapha the tailor.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	playing	play	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	acl	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	streets	street	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
11	as	as	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	usual	usual	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	iobj	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
22	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
23	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
25	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	27	advmod	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	Mustapha	Mustapha	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	tailor	tailor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | past · progressive | Aladdin |  |  | the streets |  | as usual | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | a stranger | Aladdin's age | Aladdin |  | day |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | Aladdin | the son |  |  |  | of Mustapha | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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