---
title: So at a loss to know what to say, he replied: — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: So at a loss to know what to say, he replied: Who acts: Boy. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, How He Dislodged the Spider., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Folk tales from Tibet, How He Dislodged the Spider., sentence 46

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So at a loss to know what to say, he replied:

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**Who acts:** Boy · **What happens:** know, say, reply · **To what, where:** loss · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, How He Dislodged the Spider.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Boy), 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:pg75000:24:46
# text = So at a loss to know what to say, he replied:
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	loss	loss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	9	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | to-infinitive | Boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | what *obj* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Boy |  |  | a loss |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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