---
title: “Friend, why did you confess yourself the murderer?” — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: “Friend, why did you confess yourself the murderer?” Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 3, sentence 7

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“Friend, why did you confess yourself the murderer?”

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** confess · **To what, where:** yourself, Friend

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, 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), 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:pg65965:3:7
# text = “Friend, why did you confess yourself the murderer?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
5	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	confess	confess	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	acl:relcl	_	_
8	yourself	yourself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	7	obj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	murderer	murderer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **confess** *in a quote* | past · do-support | you | yourself |  |  |  | the murderer *obj* | vn declare-29.4 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent yourself=Theme murderer=Attribute |

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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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