---
title: _A fool may deceive by his dress and appearance, but his words will… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: _A fool may deceive by his dress and appearance, but his words will soon show what he really is. Who acts: fool, words. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass in the Lion's Skin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Ass in the Lion's Skin, sentence 9

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\_A fool may deceive by his dress and appearance, but his words will soon show what he really is.

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**Who acts:** fool, words · **What happens:** deceive, show, be, word · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass in the Lion's Skin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fool, words), 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:pg19994:147:9
# text = _A fool may deceive by his dress and appearance, but his words will soon show what he really is.
1	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	deceive	deceive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	dress	dress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	appearance	appearance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
15	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	17	advmod	_	_
17	show	show	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
18	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	21	obj	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	really	really	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **deceive** | may | a fool |  |  |  |  | by fool's dress and appearance | vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **show** | future | fool's words |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **be** | present | fool |  |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=Theme |
| 4 | **word** |  | fool |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=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:** «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 19994 (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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