---
title: Isn’t that true?’ he asked, treading on the sack so that it squeaked. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Isn’t that true?’ he asked, treading on the sack so that it squeaked. Who acts: that, Klaus, sack. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/41/69/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, sentence 69

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Isn’t that true?’ he asked, treading on the sack so that it squeaked.

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**Who acts:** that, Klaus, sack · **What happens:** not be, ask, tread, squeak · **To what, where:** sack

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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 (that, Klaus, sack), 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:pg640:41:69
# text = Isn’t that true?’ he asked, treading on the sack so that it squeaked.
1	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
3	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
4	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	treading	tread	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	sack	sack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
14	so	so	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	17	mark	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	fixed	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	squeaked	squeak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | present | that |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Klaus |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tread** | gerund | Klaus *not said here* |  |  | the sack |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on sack=Trajectory |
| 4 | **squeak** | past | sack |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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