---
title: ‘You had best call me Snati-Snati,’ said the Dog. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘You had best call me Snati-Snati,’ said the Dog. Who acts: You, best. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Ring (30), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, Prince Ring (30), sentence 49

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‘You had best call me Snati-Snati,’ said the Dog.

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**Who acts:** You, best · **What happens:** have, call, say · **To what, where:** me, Dog · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Ring (30). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, best), 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:pg640:42:49
# text = ‘You had best call me Snati-Snati,’ said the Dog.
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	12	ccomp	_	_
4	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	nsubj	_	_
5	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	Snati	Snati	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Snati	Snati	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	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 | **call** | infinitive | best |  | me |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the Dog |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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