---
title: ‘Ask him why he has torn up all those trees.’ — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ask him why he has torn up all those trees.’ Who acts: you, 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/19/66/)

<!-- 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 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/19/) / 66

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 19, sentence 66

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Ask him why he has torn up all those trees.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, father · **What happens:** ask, tear up · **To what, where:** trees, father · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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, father), 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:pg5615:19:66
# text = ‘Ask him why he has torn up all those trees.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ask	ask	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	ccomp	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	11	det:predet	_	_
10	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
11	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | imperative | you *not said here* | all trees | father |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tear up** | present · perfect | father |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 65](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/19/65/)
- next →: [sentence 67](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/19/67/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/19/)