---
title: The Caliph was much surprised, and asked her what she meant. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Caliph was much surprised, and asked her what she meant. Who acts: Caliph, woman. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of Caliph Stork, sentence 134

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The Caliph was much surprised, and asked her what she meant.

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**Who acts:** Caliph, woman · **What happens:** be, ask, mean · **To what, where:** woman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Caliph, woman), 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:pg7277:7:134
# text = The Caliph was much surprised, and asked her what she meant.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Caliph	Caliph	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	much	much	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	surprised	surprised	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
9	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	obj	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Caliph |  |  |  |  | surprised *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the Caliph *not said here* |  | woman |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **mean** | past | woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=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 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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