---
title: By-and-by the maiden stole up to ask what task he had for the next d… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: By-and-by the maiden stole up to ask what task he had for the next day. Who acts: task. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 2, sentence 52

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By-and-by the maiden stole up to ask what task he had for the next day.

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**Who acts:** task · **What happens:** steal up, ask, have · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (task), 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:pg641:10:52
# text = By-and-by the maiden stole up to ask what task he had for the next day.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	maiden	maiden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
8	stole	steal	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	obj	_	_
13	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **steal up** | past |  |  |  |  |  | by the maiden | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by maiden=Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **have** | past | task |  |  |  | day |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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