---
title: As he stepped on it the whale said, ‘Do tell me where you are going.’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As he stepped on it the whale said, ‘Do tell me where you are going.’ Who acts: man, whale, you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, sentence 102

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As he stepped on it the whale said, ‘Do tell me where you are going.’

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**Who acts:** man, whale, you · **What happens:** step, say, tell, go · **To what, where:** sea, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, whale, you), 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:pg641:4:102
# text = As he stepped on it the whale said, ‘Do tell me where you are going.’
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stepped	step	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	whale	whale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Do	do	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	17	advmod	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **step** | past | man |  |  | sea |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on it=Trajectory |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the whale |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive |  |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 4 | **go** | present · progressive | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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