---
title: No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust or distrust… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust or distrust him. Who acts: one, you. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 8, sentence 126

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No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust or distrust him.

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**Who acts:** one, you · **What happens:** be, not know, trust, distrust · **To what, where:** friend, Fox · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one, you), 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:pg21:10:126
# text = No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust or distrust him.
1	No	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	2	det	_	_
2	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
11	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	trust	trust	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	distrust	distrust	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | can | no one | a friend |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **know** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **trust** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **distrust** | infinitive |  | Fox |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=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:** «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 21 (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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