---
title: ‘You are old, and have lost your strength; of what use are you?’ — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘You are old, and have lost your strength; of what use are you?’ Who acts: You. 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 27

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‘You are old, and have lost your strength; of what use are you?’

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**Who acts:** You · **What happens:** be, lose, use · **To what, where:** strength, you

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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 (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:pg5615:19:27
# text = ‘You are old, and have lost your strength; of what use are you?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
9	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	strength	strength	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	nsubj	_	_
14	use	use	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
15	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | You |  |  |  |  | old *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **lose** | present · perfect | You *not said here* | your strength |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent strength=Eventuality |
| 3 | **use** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | present |  | you |  |  |  |  | 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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