---
title: “No one can tell you what you wish to know better than I can,” said… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “No one can tell you what you wish to know better than I can,” said he. Who acts: one, you, sight. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Yellow Dwarf, part 2, sentence 90

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“No one can tell you what you wish to know better than I can,” said he.

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**Who acts:** one, you, sight · **What happens:** tell, wish, know, say · **To what, where:** you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, 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 (one, you, sight), 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:pg503:6:90
# text = “No one can tell you what you wish to know better than I can,” said he.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	wish	wish	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	11	advmod	_	_
13	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
18	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | can | no one |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient what=Topic |
| 2 | **wish** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **know** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | sight |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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