---
title: I have no news, except that if you will open your mouth you shall se… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I have no news, except that if you will open your mouth you shall see what dates taste like.’ Who acts: I, you, dates. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 141

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I have no news, except that if you will open your mouth you shall see what dates taste like.’

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**Who acts:** I, you, dates · **What happens:** have, open, see, taste · **To what, where:** news, mouth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. 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, dates), 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:pg641:29:141
# text = I have no news, except that if you will open your mouth you shall see what dates taste like.’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
6	except	except	ADP	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	open	open	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
12	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	obj	_	_
18	dates	date	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
19	taste	taste	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
20	like	like	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | I | no news |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent news=Patient |
| 2 | **open** *a condition, not said to happen* | future | you | your mouth |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mouth=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | shall | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **taste** | present | dates |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Theme what=Attribute |

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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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