---
title: When I come back, they will tell me what has happened.” — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When I come back, they will tell me what has happened.” Who acts: I, pots. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 38, 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/pg2435/38/40/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 38, sentence 40

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When I come back, they will tell me what has happened.”

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**Who acts:** I, pots · **What happens:** come back, tell, happen · **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 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, pots), 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:pg2435:38:40
# text = When I come back, they will tell me what has happened.”
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
4	back	back	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
11	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come back** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | future | pots *= pot* |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **happen** | present · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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