---
title: What it is to be is a secret, but we hope that it will not be dull. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: What it is to be is a secret, but we hope that it will not be dull. Who acts: we, Book. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Green Fairy Book, sentence 31

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What it is to be is a secret, but we hope that it will not be dull.

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**Who acts:** we, Book · **What happens:** be, hope, not be · **To what, where:** secret · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we, Book), 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:pg7277:1:31
# text = What it is to be is a secret, but we hope that it will not be dull.
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	nsubj	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	hope	hope	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
15	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
16	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	cop	_	_
18	dull	dull	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | a secret |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **hope** | present | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **not** **is** | future | Book |  |  |  |  | dull *property* | tree rules |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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