---
title: There used always to be an echo in this cave, but I can’t hear the s… — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: There used always to be an echo in this cave, but I can’t hear the slightest echo to-night. Who acts: I. 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 51

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There used always to be an echo in this cave, but I can’t hear the slightest echo to-night.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** use, be, not hear · **To what, where:** echo, cave, slightest echo

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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 (I), 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:pg75000:21:51
# text = There used always to be an echo in this cave, but I can’t hear the slightest echo to-night.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
3	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	2	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	echo	echo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	xcomp	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	slightest	slight	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	19	amod	_	_
19	echo	echo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | participle |  |  |  | there |  | always *property* | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | a echo |  | this cave |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **hear** | can | I | the slightest echo |  |  | night |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer echo=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:** «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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