---
title: “Why did you not tell me it would bite?” he asked. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why did you not tell me it would bite?” he asked. Who acts: you, snake, stag. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4, sentence 9

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“Why did you not tell me it would bite?” he asked.

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**Who acts:** you, snake, stag · **What happens:** not tell, bite, ask · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, snake, stag), 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:pg3282:37:9
# text = “Why did you not tell me it would bite?” he asked.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	bite	bite	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past · do-support | you |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **bite** *in a quote* | would | snake |  |  |  |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | stag |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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