---
title: Inquiring its meaning from a learned friend, he is told-- — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Inquiring its meaning from a learned friend, he is told-- Who acts: name. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LXIII. the Pedlar of Swaffham, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, LXIII. the Pedlar of Swaffham, sentence 5

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Inquiring its meaning from a learned friend, he is told--

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**Who acts:** name · **What happens:** inquire, learn, tell, mean · **To what, where:** meaning, Hearne · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LXIII. the Pedlar of Swaffham. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (name), 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:pg14241:54:5
# text = Inquiring its meaning from a learned friend, he is told--
1	Inquiring	inquire	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
2	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	meaning	meaning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
4	from	from	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	learned	learn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	amod	_	_
7	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **inquire** *speech: other* | gerund |  | name's meaning |  |  |  | from a learned friend | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent meaning=Recipient |
| 2 | **learn** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present · passive |  | Hearne |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 4 | **mean** |  | name |  |  |  |  |  | nom meaning «communication 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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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