---
title: ‘What a blind old fool you must be to ask such a question!’ she answ… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What a blind old fool you must be to ask such a question!’ she answered angrily. Who acts: you, blind old fool. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of King Frost (26), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of King Frost (26), sentence 44

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‘What a blind old fool you must be to ask such a question!’ she answered angrily.

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**Who acts:** you, blind old fool · **What happens:** be, answer

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of King Frost (26). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, blind old fool), 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:pg640:37:44
# text = ‘What a blind old fool you must be to ask such a question!’ she answered angrily.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	6	det	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	blind	blind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
8	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
12	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	14	det:predet	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	angrily	angrily	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | must | you |  |  |  |  | ask *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | what blind old fool |  |  |  |  | angrily *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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