---
title: ‘What is your name?’ he asked her. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What is your name?’ he asked her. Who acts: Count. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner, 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/pg540/42/9/)

<!-- 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 Nettle Spinner](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/42/) / 9

# The Red Fairy Book, The Nettle Spinner, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘What is your name?’ he asked her.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Count · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** name, girl · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Count), 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:pg540:42:9
# text = ‘What is your name?’ he asked her.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | your name |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Count |  | girl |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Recipient |

<!-- .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 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/42/8/)
- next →: [sentence 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/42/10/)
- ↑ back to [The Nettle Spinner](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/42/)