---
title: “Fair sisters!” quoth Rasalu gayly, “give me my task and I will perf… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: “Fair sisters!” quoth Rasalu gayly, “give me my task and I will perform it.” Who acts: Fair sisters, other nine maidens, my. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 21, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 21, sentence 13

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“Fair sisters!” quoth Rasalu gayly, “give me my task and I will perform it.”

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**Who acts:** Fair sisters, other nine maidens, my · **What happens:** quoth, give, perform, task · **To what, where:** Rasalu, task, other nine maidens

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fair sisters, other nine maidens, my), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:21:13
# text = “Fair sisters!” quoth Rasalu gayly, “give me my task and I will perform it.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	quoth	quoth	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	Rasalu	Rasalu	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	gayly	gayly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	give	give	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	perform	perform	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **quoth** | infinitive | Fair sisters | Rasalu |  |  |  | gayly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** *in a quote* | infinitive | Fair sisters *not said here* | my task | the other nine maidens *= maiden* |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient task=Theme |
| 3 | **perform** *in a quote* | future | the other nine maidens *= maiden* | task |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 4 | **task** *in a quote* |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom task «act transitive»: poss=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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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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