---
title: “Only think! when I asked him how he purposed gaining a livelihood,… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Only think! when I asked him how he purposed gaining a livelihood, he actually asked to be taught to shudder.” Who acts: you, father. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/13/14/)

<!-- 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 Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Lea…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/13/) / 14

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Only think! when I asked him how he purposed gaining a livelihood, he actually asked to be taught to shudder.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, father · **What happens:** think, ask, purpose, gain, teach · **To what, where:** father, livelihood, shudder · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, father), 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:pg503:13:14
# text = “Only think! when I asked him how he purposed gaining a livelihood, he actually asked to be taught to shudder.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Only	only	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	think	think	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
5	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	iobj	_	_
9	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	purposed	purpose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
12	gaining	gain	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	xcomp	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	livelihood	livelihood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	actually	actually	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	taught	teach	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	ccomp	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	shudder	shudder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | past | father |  | father |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 3 | **purpose** *speech: other* *in a quote* | past | father |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **gain** *in a quote* | gerund | father *not said here* | a livelihood |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent livelihood=Theme |
| 5 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | past | father |  |  |  |  | actually *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 6 | **teach** *speech: other* *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive · passive |  | shudder |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V» |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/13/13/)
- next →: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/13/15/)
- ↑ back to [The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/13/)