---
title: “Say nothing,” answered the fox, “but leave the talking to me. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Say nothing,” answered the fox, “but leave the talking to me. Who acts: fox. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 25, 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/pg2435/25/86/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 86

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“Say nothing,” answered the fox, “but leave the talking to me.

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**Who acts:** fox · **What happens:** say, answer, leave · **To what, where:** nothing, talking, fox · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox), 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:pg2435:25:86
# text = “Say nothing,” answered the fox, “but leave the talking to me.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
6	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	leave	leave	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	talking	talking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	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 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the fox |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **leave** *in a quote* | present | the fox *not said here* | the talking | the fox *= fox* |  |  |  | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent talking=Theme to i=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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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