---
title: ‘What is that you have in your flask, old woman?’ asked one of the s… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What is that you have in your flask, old woman?’ asked one of the stable boys. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 186

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‘What is that you have in your flask, old woman?’ asked one of the stable boys.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** flask, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg540:9:186
# text = ‘What is that you have in your flask, old woman?’ asked one of the stable boys.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	ccomp	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	flask	flask	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
15	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	obj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	stable	stable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | you |  |  | your flask |  | have *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  | one of the stable boys |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent one=Recipient clause=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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