---
title: They sent for the Star Gazer, and asked him how he had contrived to… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They sent for the Star Gazer, and asked him how he had contrived to learn their secret; but still he remained silent. Who acts: sisters, Gazer. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/155/)

<!-- 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 Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/) / 155

# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 155

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They sent for the Star Gazer, and asked him how he had contrived to learn their secret; but still he remained silent.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sisters, Gazer · **What happens:** send, ask, contrive, learn, remain · **To what, where:** Gazer, secret · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sisters, Gazer), 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:pg540:2:155
# text = They sent for the Star Gazer, and asked him how he had contrived to learn their secret; but still he remained silent.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sent	send	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	for	for	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	Star	Star	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	Gazer	Gazer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	contrived	contrive	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	ccomp	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	learn	learn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	still	still	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
22	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	remained	remain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
24	silent	silent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **send** | past | sisters *= sister* |  |  |  |  | for the Star Gazer | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | sisters *= sister* *not said here* |  | Gazer |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **contrive** | past · perfect | Gazer |  |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **learn** | to-infinitive | Gazer *not said here* | sisters's secret |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent secret=Topic |
| 5 | **remain** | past | Gazer |  |  |  | still | silent *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 154](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/154/)
- next →: [sentence 156](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/156/)
- ↑ back to [The Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/)