---
title: He pretended to look very surprised, and all he could say was: — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: He pretended to look very surprised, and all he could say was: Who acts: stranger. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Story of the Two Neighbours., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Folk tales from Tibet, The Story of the Two Neighbours., sentence 44

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He pretended to look very surprised, and all he could say was:

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**Who acts:** stranger · **What happens:** pretend, look, say · **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 Two Neighbours.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stranger), 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:pg75000:5:44
# text = He pretended to look very surprised, and all he could say was:
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	surprised	surprised	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	2	ccomp	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl:relcl	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pretend** | past | stranger |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **look** | to-infinitive | stranger *not said here* |  |  |  |  | surprised *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | could | stranger |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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