---
title: ‘You had better tell me about him,’ said Minnikin. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘You had better tell me about him,’ said Minnikin. Who acts: You, Minnikin. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mother Holle, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Mother Holle, part 3, sentence 14

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‘You had better tell me about him,’ said Minnikin.

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**Who acts:** You, Minnikin · **What happens:** have, tell, say · **To what, where:** better, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mother Holle, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, Minnikin), 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:pg540:46:14
# text = ‘You had better tell me about him,’ said Minnikin.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
4	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	obj	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	about	about	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	Minnikin	Minnikin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | You |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive | You *not said here* | better | me |  |  | about Troll | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient good=Topic |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Minnikin |  |  |  |  |  | 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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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