---
title: A fool may perhaps answer what a wise man knows not. — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: A fool may perhaps answer what a wise man knows not. Who acts: fool, wise man. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 14, 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/pg14241/28/45/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 14, sentence 45

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A fool may perhaps answer what a wise man knows not.

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**Who acts:** fool, wise man · **What happens:** answer, not know · **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 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fool, wise man), 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:pg14241:28:45
# text = A fool may perhaps answer what a wise man knows not.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	obj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	knows	know	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | may | a fool |  |  |  |  | perhaps *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **know** | present | a wise man |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |

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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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