---
title: ‘Well, ask it; but I know quite well what it is. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well, ask it; but I know quite well what it is. Who acts: you, I, question. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/199/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Story of Halfman](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/) / 199

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 199

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Well, ask it; but I know quite well what it is.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, I, question · **What happens:** ask, know, be · **To what, where:** question · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I, question), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:41:199
# text = ‘Well, ask it; but I know quite well what it is.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	ask	ask	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
10	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	9	ccomp	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | imperative | you *not said here* |  | question |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |
| 2 | **know** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is a** | present | question |  |  |  |  | well *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 198](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/198/)
- next →: [sentence 200](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/200/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Halfman](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/)