---
title: ‘What can be keeping him,’ he said to the hermit when the hour was n… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What can be keeping him,’ he said to the hermit when the hour was nearly up. Who acts: youth, hour. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 19, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 19, sentence 120

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‘What can be keeping him,’ he said to the hermit when the hour was nearly up.

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**Who acts:** youth, hour · **What happens:** keep, say, be · **To what, where:** youth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youth, hour), 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:pg5615:19:120
# text = ‘What can be keeping him,’ he said to the hermit when the hour was nearly up.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	keeping	keep	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	ccomp	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hermit	hermit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	up	up	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | can · progressive |  | youth |  |  |  |  | vn sustain-55.6-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent what=Theme he=Attribute |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | youth |  |  |  |  | to the hermit | vn indicate-78-1 «NP V PP.recipient whether/if S»: agent=Pivot to hermit=Experiencer clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is** | past | the hour |  |  |  |  | nearly, up *property* | tree rules |

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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 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.

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