---
title: “Why,” said he, “what sort of a shell are you? — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why,” said he, “what sort of a shell are you? Who acts: shell, sort. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Story of Room Bacha and Baki., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Folk tales from Tibet, The Story of Room Bacha and Baki., sentence 91

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“Why,” said he, “what sort of a shell are you?

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**Who acts:** shell, sort · **What happens:** say, be, sort · **To what, where:** you, shell · **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 Room Bacha and Baki.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shell, sort), 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:pg75000:22:91
# text = “Why,” said he, “what sort of a shell are you?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	10	det	_	_
10	sort	sort	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	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 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | shell |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | what sort of a shell | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **sort** *in a quote* |  |  | a shell |  |  |  |  | nom sort «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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