---
title: It was not long before he began to ask about Farmer Weatherbeard. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was not long before he began to ask about Farmer Weatherbeard. Who acts: snuff, other two. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Farmer Weatherbeard, sentence 46

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It was not long before he began to ask about Farmer Weatherbeard.

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**Who acts:** snuff, other two · **What happens:** not be, begin, ask

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (snuff, other two), 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:pg540:43:46
# text = It was not long before he began to ask about Farmer Weatherbeard.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	about	about	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	Farmer	Farmer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	Weatherbeard	Weatherbeard	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | snuff |  |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **begin** | past | other two *= two* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive | other two *= two* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about Farmer Weatherbeard | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V PP.topic whether S»: agent=Agent about weatherbeard=Topic |

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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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