---
title: “I will tell nobody till it comes true,” said the boy, as he had sai… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I will tell nobody till it comes true,” said the boy, as he had said before; “and I will beat anybody who asks me.” Who acts: boy, head. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/7/10/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Crimson Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/) / [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/7/) / 10

# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I will tell nobody till it comes true,” said the boy, as he had said before; “and I will beat anybody who asks me.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** boy, head · **What happens:** tell, come, say, beat, ask · **To what, where:** nobody, anybody, boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, head), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2435:7:10
# text = “I will tell nobody till it comes true,” said the boy, as he had said before; “and I will beat anybody who asks me.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
5	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obj	_	_
6	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	comes	come	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
9	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	conj	_	_
20	before	before	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	26	punct	_	_
22	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
27	anybody	anybody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	26	obj	_	_
28	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	29	nsubj	_	_
29	asks	ask	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	acl:relcl	_	_
30	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	29	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	26	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | future | the boy *= boy* |  | nobody |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent nobody=Recipient |
| 2 | **come** *in a quote* | present | head |  |  |  |  | true *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · perfect | boy |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **beat** *in a quote* | future | the boy *= boy* | anybody |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location anybody=Theme |
| 6 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | present |  |  | the boy *= boy* |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/7/9/)
- next →: [sentence 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/7/11/)
- ↑ back to [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/7/)