---
title: "Maybe," says the wise woman, "but read me this, now, what's yellow… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Maybe," says the wise woman, "but read me this, now, what's yellow and shining but isn't gold?" Who acts: wise woman. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/26/49/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 12, sentence 49

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"Maybe," says the wise woman, "but read me this, now, what's yellow and shining but isn't gold?"

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**Who acts:** wise woman · **What happens:** say, read, be, shine, not be · **To what, where:** this, wise woman, gold · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wise woman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg14241:26:49
# text = "Maybe," says the wise woman, "but read me this, now, what's yellow and shining but isn't gold?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Maybe	maybe	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	read	read	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	advcl	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	conj	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
26	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	"	"	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* | present | the wise woman |  |  |  |  | maybe *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **read** *in a quote* | infinitive | the wise woman *not said here* | this | the wise woman *= woman* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient this=Topic |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  | now | yellow *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **shine** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **not** **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | gold |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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