---
title: He was not sure if he was to lie, or whether he had better tell the… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was not sure if he was to lie, or whether he had better tell the truth. Who acts: Petru. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 3, sentence 41

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He was not sure if he was to lie, or whether he had better tell the truth.

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**Who acts:** Petru · **What happens:** not be, be, tell · **To what, where:** truth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Petru), 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:pg641:21:41
# text = He was not sure if he was to lie, or whether he had better tell the truth.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	14	xcomp	_	_
16	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | Petru |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | Petru |  |  |  |  | lie *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Petru *not said here* | the truth |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent truth=Recipient |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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