---
title: ‘Give me, instead, that half-starved creature in the corner,’ asked… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Give me, instead, that half-starved creature in the corner,’ asked the prince. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, sentence 145

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Give me, instead, that half-starved creature in the corner,’ asked the prince.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** give, starve, ask · **To what, where:** starved creature, me, prince · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples. 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:pg641:7:145
# text = ‘Give me, instead, that half-starved creature in the corner,’ asked the prince.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
5	instead	instead	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
8	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	starved	starve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	amod	_	_
11	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	corner	corner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
17	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | infinitive |  | that starved creature in the corner | me |  |  | instead *property* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |
| 2 | **starve** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | the prince |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent prince=Recipient clause=Topic |

<!-- .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.

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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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