---
title: ‘How ought I to have set about it?’ asked Petru, half angrily, half… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘How ought I to have set about it?’ asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, sentence 72

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‘How ought I to have set about it?’ asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** set, ask · **To what, where:** Petru

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg641:19:72
# text = ‘How ought I to have set about it?’ asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
3	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
6	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux	_	_
7	set	set	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	parataxis	_	_
8	about	about	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Petru	Petru	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	16	advmod	_	_
16	angrily	angrily	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	19	advmod	_	_
19	sadly	sadly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set** | ought · perfect | I |  |  |  |  | about matter | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent about it=Destination |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | Petru |  |  | angrily, sadly *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent petru=Recipient |

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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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