---
title: ‘Wilt thou serve me, and watch my seven foals?’ asked the King. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Wilt thou serve me, and watch my seven foals?’ asked the King. Who acts: thou. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals, 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/pg540/49/7/)

<!-- 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 Seven Foals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/) / 7

# The Red Fairy Book, The Seven Foals, sentence 7

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Wilt thou serve me, and watch my seven foals?’ asked the King.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** thou · **What happens:** serve, watch, ask · **To what, where:** me, seven foals, King · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thou), 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:pg540:49:7
# text = ‘Wilt thou serve me, and watch my seven foals?’ asked the King.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Wilt	will	AUX	MD	Style=Arch|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	4	nsubj	_	_
4	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	watch	watch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	foals	foal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
14	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **serve** | future | thou | me |  |  |  |  | vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Attribute |
| 2 | **watch** | infinitive | thou *not said here* | my seven foals |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent foal=Theme |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | the King |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent king=Recipient clause=Topic |

<!-- .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 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/6/)
- next →: [sentence 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/8/)
- ↑ back to [The Seven Foals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/)