---
title: There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth. — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth. Who acts: believing liar, liar. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 3, sentence 49

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There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.

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**Who acts:** believing liar, liar · **What happens:** be, believe, speak · **To what, where:** truth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (believing liar, liar), 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:pg21:5:49
# text = There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	6	det	_	_
4	believing	believe	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	amod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	liar	liar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	even	even	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	speaks	speak	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | no believing liar |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **believe** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | present | liar | the truth |  |  |  |  | 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:** «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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