---
title: ‘Coachman, what’s the meaning of all this grief?’ asked the shepherd. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Coachman, what’s the meaning of all this grief?’ asked the shepherd. Who acts: Coachman. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dogs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Three Dogs, sentence 19

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‘Coachman, what’s the meaning of all this grief?’ asked the shepherd.

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**Who acts:** Coachman · **What happens:** ask, mean · **To what, where:** shepherd, grief

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Coachman), 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:pg7277:56:19
# text = ‘Coachman, what’s the meaning of all this grief?’ asked the shepherd.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Coachman	coachman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	acl:relcl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	meaning	meaning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	11	det:predet	_	_
10	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
11	grief	grief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
14	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	shepherd	shepherd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Coachman |  | the shepherd |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent shepherd=Recipient |
| 2 | **mean** |  |  | all grief |  |  |  |  | nom meaning «communication transitive»: of=patient |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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