---
title: Before you begin to eat me don’t you think it would be a good thing… — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: Before you begin to eat me don’t you think it would be a good thing to sharpen it a little. Who acts: you, bill. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Frog and the Crow., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Folk tales from Tibet, The Frog and the Crow., sentence 13

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Before you begin to eat me don’t you think it would be a good thing to sharpen it a little.

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**Who acts:** you, bill · **What happens:** begin, eat, not do, think, be, sharpen · **To what, where:** me, good thing, bill · **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 Frog and the Crow.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, bill), 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:pg75000:9:13
# text = Before you begin to eat me don’t you think it would be a good thing to sharpen it a little.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	begin	begin	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	cop	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	sharpen	sharpen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **eat** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | me |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **do** | infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **think** *speech: other* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is a** | would | bill | a good thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **sharpen** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | bill |  |  |  | a little *obl:unmarked* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent it=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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