---
title: ‘Oh, good father,’ exclaimed the youth, ‘what can he be doing?’ — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh, good father,’ exclaimed the youth, ‘what can he be doing?’ Who acts: good father, father. 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 55

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‘Oh, good father,’ exclaimed the youth, ‘what can he be doing?’

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**Who acts:** good father, father · **What happens:** exclaim, do · **To what, where:** youth

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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 (good father, father), 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:pg5615:19:55
# text = ‘Oh, good father,’ exclaimed the youth, ‘what can he be doing?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	exclaimed	exclaim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	obj	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux	_	_
17	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **exclaim** *speech: express* | past | good father | the youth |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent youth=Topic |
| 2 | **do** | can · progressive | father |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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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