---
title: "How can I tell?" said the jackal. " — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "How can I tell?" said the jackal. " Who acts: jackal. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 6, sentence 44

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"How can I tell?" said the jackal. "

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**Who acts:** jackal · **What happens:** tell, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (jackal), 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:pg7128:12:44
# text = "How can I tell?" said the jackal. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	jackal	jackal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## 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* | can | the jackal *= jackal* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the jackal |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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:** «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7128 (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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