---
title: ‘Yes; but what am I to do?’ asked Halfman. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Yes; but what am I to do?’ asked Halfman. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 62

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‘Yes; but what am I to do?’ asked Halfman.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** do, ask · **To what, where:** Halfman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg641:41:62
# text = ‘Yes; but what am I to do?’ asked Halfman.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	9	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	9	obj	_	_
6	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Halfman	Halfman	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *not said to happen* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | Halfman |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent halfman=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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