---
title: What sort of a dead body is it that can still feel when it is tickle… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: What sort of a dead body is it that can still feel when it is tickled?’ Who acts: sort. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 99

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What sort of a dead body is it that can still feel when it is tickled?’

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**Who acts:** sort · **What happens:** be, tickle, sort · **To what, where:** sort, dead body

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sort), 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:pg5615:35:99
# text = What sort of a dead body is it that can still feel when it is tickled?’
1	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	2	det	_	_
2	sort	sort	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
7	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	still	still	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	feel	feel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
13	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	16	mark	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	tickled	tickle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | can · present | what sort of a dead body |  |  |  | still | feel *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **tickle** | present · passive |  | sort |  |  |  |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **sort** |  |  | a dead body |  |  |  |  | nom sort «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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