---
title: He could not bring himself to tell the truth about what had happened… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He could not bring himself to tell the truth about what had happened, nor did he expect that the king would believe it. Who acts: brother, truth, king. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 31, 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/pg5615/31/88/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 88

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He could not bring himself to tell the truth about what had happened, nor did he expect that the king would believe it.

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**Who acts:** brother, truth, king · **What happens:** not bring, tell, happen, expect, believe · **To what, where:** brother, truth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brother, truth, king), 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:pg5615:31:88
# text = He could not bring himself to tell the truth about what had happened, nor did he expect that the king would believe it.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	about	about	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	18	cc	_	_
16	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	expect	expect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
22	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **bring** | could | brother | brother |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent himself=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | brother *not said here* | the truth |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent truth=Recipient |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect | the truth |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **expect** | past · do-support | brother |  |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **believe** | would | the king | truth |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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