---
title: ‘The sea?’ asked Elsa, staring; ‘what is that? — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘The sea?’ asked Elsa, staring; ‘what is that? Who acts: sea, that. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 54

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‘The sea?’ asked Elsa, staring; ‘what is that?

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**Who acts:** sea, that · **What happens:** ask, stare, be · **To what, where:** Elsa

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sea, that), 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:pg641:2:54
# text = ‘The sea?’ asked Elsa, staring; ‘what is that?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	Elsa	Elsa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	staring	stare	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	parataxis	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
14	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the sea |  | Elsa |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent elsa=Recipient |
| 2 | **stare** | gerund | the sea *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | present | that |  |  |  |  |  | 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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