---
title: ‘But tell me, child, how came you here, and how is it you have neith… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But tell me, child, how came you here, and how is it you have neither father, nor mother, nor friend?’ Who acts: you, kingdom. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Good Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Little Good Mouse, sentence 123

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‘But tell me, child, how came you here, and how is it you have neither father, nor mother, nor friend?’

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**Who acts:** you, kingdom · **What happens:** tell, come, be · **To what, where:** child, me, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Good Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, kingdom), 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:pg540:22:123
# text = ‘But tell me, child, how came you here, and how is it you have neither father, nor mother, nor friend?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
9	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
14	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
19	neither	neither	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	20	det	_	_
20	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	23	cc	_	_
23	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	26	cc	_	_
26	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* | child | me |  |  | friend *obl* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 2 | **come** | past |  | you |  | here |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location you=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | present | kingdom |  |  |  |  | have *property* | tree rules |

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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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