---
title: Now I must tell you who I am, and what befell to cause me to take th… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Now I must tell you who I am, and what befell to cause me to take the shape of an old woman. Who acts: I, me. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4, 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/pg3454/4/21/)

<!-- 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 Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/4/) / 21

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Now I must tell you who I am, and what befell to cause me to take the shape of an old woman.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, me · **What happens:** tell, be, befall, cause, take · **To what, where:** you, me, shape · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, 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 (I, me), 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:pg3454:4:21
# text = Now I must tell you who I am, and what befell to cause me to take the shape of an old woman.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	ccomp	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
8	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
12	befell	befall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	cause	cause	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	shape	shape	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | must | I |  | you |  | now |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **befall** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **cause** | to-infinitive |  | me |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **take** | to-infinitive | me *not said here* | the shape of a old woman |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shape=Theme |

<!-- .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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/4/20/)
- next →: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/4/22/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/4/)