---
title: ‘Where have you been all this time?’ asked the minister. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Where have you been all this time?’ asked the minister. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 45

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‘Where have you been all this time?’ asked the minister.

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**What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** time, minister

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg641:33:45
# text = ‘Where have you been all this time?’ asked the minister.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	8	advmod	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	cop	_	_
6	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	8	det:predet	_	_
7	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	minister	minister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | participle |  | all time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  | the minister |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent minister=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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