---
title: ‘Well, how do you like to be a fish?’ asked the troll. — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well, how do you like to be a fish?’ asked the troll. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 27, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 53

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‘Well, how do you like to be a fish?’ asked the troll.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** like, be, ask · **To what, where:** fish, troll · **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 27. 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:pg5615:27:53
# text = ‘Well, how do you like to be a fish?’ asked the troll.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
5	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
14	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	troll	troll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **like** | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **is a** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | a fish |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  | the troll |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent troll=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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