---
title: So the young Tortoise went back to his mother and told her what had… — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: So the young Tortoise went back to his mother and told her what had happened. Who acts: young Tortoise. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Story of the Tortoise and the Monkey., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Folk tales from Tibet, The Story of the Tortoise and the Monkey., sentence 15

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So the young Tortoise went back to his mother and told her what had happened.

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**Who acts:** young Tortoise · **What happens:** go back, tell, happen · **To what, where:** Mother · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Story of the Tortoise and the Monkey.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young Tortoise), 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:pg75000:21:15
# text = So the young Tortoise went back to his mother and told her what had happened.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	Tortoise	Tortoise	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go back** | past | the young Tortoise |  |  |  |  | to Tortoise's mother *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to mother=Result |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the young Tortoise *not said here* |  | Mother |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  | what *nsubj* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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:** «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, Project Gutenberg book 75000 (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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