---
title: "Tell us the truth," said the servants; "who are you?" — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Tell us the truth," said the servants; "who are you?" Who acts: you, servants. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 18, sentence 45

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"Tell us the truth," said the servants; "who are you?"

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**Who acts:** you, servants · **What happens:** tell, say, be · **To what, where:** truth, us · **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 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, servants), 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:pg7128:24:45
# text = "Tell us the truth," said the servants; "who are you?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	servants	servant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	ccomp	_	_
14	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	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* | imperative | you *not said here* | the truth | us |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the servants |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | 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:** «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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