---
title: “How could he?” asked the maina. — Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat · tree and pragmatics
description: “How could he?” asked the maina. A sentence of «Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat» by C. A. Kincaid, The Eighth Key., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/11/106/)

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# Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat, The Eighth Key., sentence 106

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“How could he?” asked the maina.

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**What happens:** ask

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This is a sentence of «Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat» by C. A. Kincaid, The Eighth Key.. 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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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg76982:11:106
# text = “How could he?” asked the maina.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	maina	maina	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent 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:** «Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat» by C. A. Kincaid, Project Gutenberg book 76982 (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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