---
title: ‘What does the King, I pray you tell, Is he awake or sleeps he well?’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What does the King, I pray you tell, Is he awake or sleeps he well?’ Who acts: I, you, King. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Dwarfs, part 1, sentence 85

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‘What does the King, I pray you tell, Is he awake or sleeps he well?’

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**Who acts:** I, you, King · **What happens:** do, pray, tell, be, sleep · **To what, where:** King · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you, King), 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:pg540:37:85
# text = ‘What does the King, I pray you tell, Is he awake or sleeps he well?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	nsubj	_	_
3	does	do	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	pray	pray	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	awake	awake	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	advcl	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	sleeps	sleep	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | present |  | the King |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent king=Eventuality |
| 2 | **pray** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | present | King |  |  |  |  | awake *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **sleep** | present | King *not said here* | King |  |  |  | well *property* | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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.

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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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