---
title: He asked the most distinguished-looking cockchafer they met if he kn… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He asked the most distinguished-looking cockchafer they met if he knew where they could find the King of the Peacocks. Who acts: answer, Cockchafers. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Princess Rosette, sentence 74

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He asked the most distinguished-looking cockchafer they met if he knew where they could find the King of the Peacocks.

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**Who acts:** answer, Cockchafers · **What happens:** ask, look, meet, know, find · **To what, where:** looking cockchafer, King · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (answer, Cockchafers), 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:pg540:11:74
# text = He asked the most distinguished-looking cockchafer they met if he knew where they could find the King of the Peacocks.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
4	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	5	advmod	_	_
5	distinguished	distinguished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	amod	_	_
8	cockchafer	cockchafer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
14	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	17	advmod	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	Peacocks	Peacock	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | answer | the looking cockchafer |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent cockchafer=Recipient |
| 2 | **look** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **meet** | past | Cockchafers *= cockchafer* | the looking cockchafer *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cockchafer=Co-Agent |
| 4 | **know** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | answer |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 5 | **find** | could | Cockchafers *= cockchafer* | the King of the Peacocks |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent king=Topic |

<!-- .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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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