---
title: But the wise men were as silent as ever. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the wise men were as silent as ever. Who acts: wise men. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 44

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But the wise men were as silent as ever.

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**Who acts:** wise men · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wise men), 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:pg2435:5:44
# text = But the wise men were as silent as ever.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	as	as	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	silent	silent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the wise men |  |  |  |  | silent *property* | 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:** «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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