---
title: “You need only tell me what I am to do, and I will strictly comply.” — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: “You need only tell me what I am to do, and I will strictly comply.” Who acts: You, I. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 17, sentence 93

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“You need only tell me what I am to do, and I will strictly comply.”

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**Who acts:** You, I · **What happens:** tell, do, comply · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:17:93
# text = “You need only tell me what I am to do, and I will strictly comply.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	need	need	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	only	only	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	obj	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	strictly	strictly	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	comply	comply	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | You |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *not said to happen, in a quote* | present | I |  |  |  |  | what *obj* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 3 | **comply** *in a quote* | future | I |  |  |  |  | strictly *property* | 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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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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