---
title: Let us see who can tell the biggest lie, and the one who lies the be… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Let us see who can tell the biggest lie, and the one who lies the best shall have the whole cake.’ Who acts: you, us, one. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Finest Liar in the World, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Finest Liar in the World, sentence 18

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Let us see who can tell the biggest lie, and the one who lies the best shall have the whole cake.’

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**Who acts:** you, us, one · **What happens:** let, see, tell, lie, have · **To what, where:** us, biggest lie, best, whole cake · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Finest Liar in the World. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, us, one), 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:pg641:3:18
# text = Let us see who can tell the biggest lie, and the one who lies the best shall have the whole cake.’
1	Let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	obj	_	_
3	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	xcomp	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
5	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	biggest	big	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	9	amod	_	_
9	lie	lie	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
14	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
15	lies	lie	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	15	obl	_	_
18	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** | imperative | you *not said here* | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | infinitive | us *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | can |  | the biggest lie |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent lie=Recipient |
| 4 | **lie** | present | the one | the best |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **have** | shall | the one | the whole cake |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cake=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 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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