---
title: ‘Ask him whether he will take ten kisses from my ladies-in-waiting.’ — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ask him whether he will take ten kisses from my ladies-in-waiting.’ Who acts: you, Superbe. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Swineherd, sentence 63

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‘Ask him whether he will take ten kisses from my ladies-in-waiting.’

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**Who acts:** you, Superbe · **What happens:** ask, take, wait · **To what, where:** Superbe, ten kisses

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Superbe), 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:pg640:43:63
# text = ‘Ask him whether he will take ten kisses from my ladies-in-waiting.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ask	ask	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
8	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	kisses	kiss	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	from	from	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	ladies	lady	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	waiting	wait	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | imperative | you *not said here* |  | Superbe |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **take** *not said to happen* | future | Superbe | ten kisses |  |  |  | from my ladies | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent kiss=Theme from lady=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **wait** | gerund | Superbe *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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