---
title: Have you never yet heard that a fool may teach a wise man wit? — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Have you never yet heard that a fool may teach a wise man wit? Who acts: you, fool. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, II. the Three Answers., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, II. the Three Answers., sentence 6

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Have you never yet heard that a fool may teach a wise man wit?

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**Who acts:** you, fool · **What happens:** not hear, teach · **To what, where:** wise man wit

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, II. the Three Answers.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, fool), 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:pg18442:10:6
# text = Have you never yet heard that a fool may teach a wise man wit?
1	Have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	teach	teach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	wit	wit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **hear** | present · perfect | you |  |  |  | yet |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **teach** *speech: other* | may | a fool | a wise man wit |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent wit=Recipient |

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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:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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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