---
title: When they had got out a little way the troll said to his wife, ‘Are… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When they had got out a little way the troll said to his wife, ‘Are my eyes green?’ Who acts: trough, troll, eyes. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, 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/pg5615/16/141/)

<!-- 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 Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/) / 141

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 141

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When they had got out a little way the troll said to his wife, ‘Are my eyes green?’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** trough, troll, eyes · **What happens:** get out, say, be · **To what, where:** little way, wife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (trough, troll, eyes), 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:pg5615:16:141
# text = When they had got out a little way the troll said to his wife, ‘Are my eyes green?’
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	got	get	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	troll	troll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	Are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
20	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get out** | past · perfect | trough | a little way |  |  |  |  | vn withdraw-82-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the troll | a little way *not said here* | mound's wife |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent way=Topic to wife=Recipient |
| 3 | **is** | present | my eyes |  |  |  |  | green *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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 140](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/140/)
- next →: [sentence 142](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/142/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/)