---
title: Without in the least expecting an answer, the Prince asked it: — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Without in the least expecting an answer, the Prince asked it: Who acts: Prince. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 3, sentence 52

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Without in the least expecting an answer, the Prince asked it:

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**Who acts:** Prince · **What happens:** expect, ask · **To what, where:** answer

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince), 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:pg540:36:52
# text = Without in the least expecting an answer, the Prince asked it:
1	Without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	advmod	_	_
5	expecting	expect	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **expect** | gerund | the Prince *not said here* | a answer |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent answer=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the Prince |  | answer |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |

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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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