---
title: ‘Take care what you are asking,’ replied the wise man. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Take care what you are asking,’ replied the wise man. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 28

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‘Take care what you are asking,’ replied the wise man.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** take, ask, reply · **To what, where:** care, wise man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. 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:pg641:13:28
# text = ‘Take care what you are asking,’ replied the wise man.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
3	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	obj	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | infinitive |  | care |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent care=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present · progressive | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent what=Recipient |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past |  | the wise man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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