---
title: “Tell me at once what has happened,” said the herdsman sternly. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Tell me at once what has happened,” said the herdsman sternly. Who acts: herdsman. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 26, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 94

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“Tell me at once what has happened,” said the herdsman sternly.

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**Who acts:** herdsman · **What happens:** tell, happen, say · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (herdsman), 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:pg2435:26:94
# text = “Tell me at once what has happened,” said the herdsman sternly.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	obl	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	nsubj	_	_
7	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	herdsman	herdsman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	sternly	sternly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **happen** *in a quote* | present · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the herdsman |  |  |  |  | sternly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that 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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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