---
title: He had a thousand questions to ask, and a thousand things to tell. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had a thousand questions to ask, and a thousand things to tell. Who acts: Petru. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 4, sentence 42

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He had a thousand questions to ask, and a thousand things to tell.

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**Who acts:** Petru · **What happens:** have, ask, tell · **To what, where:** thousand questions · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Petru), 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:pg641:22:42
# text = He had a thousand questions to ask, and a thousand things to tell.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	parataxis	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Petru | a thousand questions |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent question=Patient |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive | Petru *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | Petru *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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