---
title: The screech owl begged him to relate it, and the Caliph accordingly… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The screech owl begged him to relate it, and the Caliph accordingly told him what we already know. Who acts: screech owl, Caliph, we. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of Caliph Stork, sentence 116

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The screech owl begged him to relate it, and the Caliph accordingly told him what we already know.

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**Who acts:** screech owl, Caliph, we · **What happens:** beg, relate, tell, know · **To what, where:** companion, owl · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (screech owl, Caliph, we), 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:pg7277:7:116
# text = The screech owl begged him to relate it, and the Caliph accordingly told him what we already know.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	screech	screech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	owl	owl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	relate	relate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Caliph	Caliph	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	accordingly	accordingly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	iobj	_	_
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	obj	_	_
17	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	already	already	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | the screech owl |  | companion |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **relate** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the screech owl *not said here* | owl |  |  |  |  | vn involve-107.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the Caliph |  | companion |  |  | accordingly *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **know** | present | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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