---
title: I wish you would tell me what the rose did to the cypress, and what… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I wish you would tell me what the rose did to the cypress, and what the sense of the riddle is.” Who acts: I, you, rose. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, 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/pg3282/4/117/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 117

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I wish you would tell me what the rose did to the cypress, and what the sense of the riddle is.”

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**Who acts:** I, you, rose · **What happens:** wish, tell, do, be, sense · **To what, where:** me, riddle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you, rose), 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:pg3282:4:117
# text = I wish you would tell me what the rose did to the cypress, and what the sense of the riddle is.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	wish	wish	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	obj	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	rose	rose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	cypress	cypress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	parataxis	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sense	sense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	riddle	riddle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wish** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | would | you |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** | past | the rose |  |  |  |  | to the cypress | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is a** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **sense** |  |  | the riddle |  |  |  |  | nom sense «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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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