---
title: But the tortoise was not the only creature of whose tricks stories w… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the tortoise was not the only creature of whose tricks stories were told in the forest. Who acts: tortoise, tricks, only creature. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, sentence 109

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the tortoise was not the only creature of whose tricks stories were told in the forest.

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**Who acts:** tortoise, tricks, only creature · **What happens:** not be, tell, trick · **To what, where:** only creature, stories, forest · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tortoise, tricks, only creature), 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:pg3282:35:109
# text = But the tortoise was not the only creature of whose tricks stories were told in the forest.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	tricks	trick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
12	stories	story	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | past | the tortoise | the only creature |  |  |  | of the only creature's tricks | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive | the only creature's tricks *not said here* | stories |  | the forest |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 3 | **trick** |  | the only creature |  |  |  |  |  | nom trick «act transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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