---
title: 'First tell me your name?' asked Covan softly. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'First tell me your name?' asked Covan softly. Who acts: your. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/31/57/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Orange Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/) / [Opening, part 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/31/) / 57

# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 31, sentence 57

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
'First tell me your name?' asked Covan softly.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** your · **What happens:** tell, ask, name · **To what, where:** name, me, Covan · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (your), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3027:31:57
# text = 'First tell me your name?' asked Covan softly.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	First	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	advmod	_	_
3	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	Covan	Covan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	iobj	_	_
11	softly	softly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive |  | your name | me |  |  | first *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient name=Topic |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | Covan |  |  | softly *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent covan=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **name** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/31/56/)
- next →: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/31/58/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/31/)