---
title: ‘But how did you get those splendid cattle?’ asked Big Klaus. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But how did you get those splendid cattle?’ asked Big Klaus. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, sentence 231

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‘But how did you get those splendid cattle?’ asked Big Klaus.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** get, ask · **To what, where:** splendid cattle, Big Klaus · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus. 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:pg640:41:231
# text = ‘But how did you get those splendid cattle?’ asked Big Klaus.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
7	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
8	splendid	splendid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	cattle	cattle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Big	Big	ADJ	NNP	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	Klaus	Klaus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past · do-support | you | that splendid cattle |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cattle=Stimulus |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | Big Klaus |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent klaus=Recipient clause=Topic |

<!-- .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.

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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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