---
title: Who could have guessed that to ask for a rose in the middle of summe… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Who could have guessed that to ask for a rose in the middle of summer would cause so much misery? Who acts: summer. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Beauty and the Beast, part 2, sentence 3

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Who could have guessed that to ask for a rose in the middle of summer would cause so much misery?

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**Who acts:** summer · **What happens:** guess, ask, cause · **To what, where:** that, middle, much misery

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (summer), 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:pg503:15:3
# text = Who could have guessed that to ask for a rose in the middle of summer would cause so much misery?
1	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	aux	_	_
4	guessed	guess	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	rose	rose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
14	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	summer	summer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	cause	cause	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	misery	misery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **guess** | could · perfect |  | that |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive |  |  |  | the middle |  | for a rose | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **cause** | would | summer | much misery |  |  |  |  | vn engender-27.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition misery=Patient |

<!-- .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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