---
title: ‘Oh, you might at least tell me,’ said Esben; ‘I have helped you bef… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh, you might at least tell me,’ said Esben; ‘I have helped you before.’ Who acts: you, Esben, I. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 28, 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/pg5615/28/121/)

<!-- 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 Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/28/) / 121

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 121

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Oh, you might at least tell me,’ said Esben; ‘I have helped you before.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, Esben, I · **What happens:** tell, say, help · **To what, where:** me, least, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Esben, I), 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:pg5615:28:121
# text = ‘Oh, you might at least tell me,’ said Esben; ‘I have helped you before.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	8	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
5	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	8	obl	_	_
8	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
13	Esben	Esben	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	helped	help	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	before	before	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | might | you |  | me | least |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Esben |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **help** | present · perfect | I |  | you |  |  | before *property* | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Beneficiary |

<!-- .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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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 120](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/28/120/)
- next →: [sentence 122](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/28/122/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/28/)