---
title: ‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ replied the toad; ‘tell me your trouble… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ replied the toad; ‘tell me your trouble and we’ll see.’ Who acts: you, we, your. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 4, sentence 84

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‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ replied the toad; ‘tell me your trouble and we’ll see.’

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**Who acts:** you, we, your · **What happens:** not be, reply, tell, see, trouble · **To what, where:** toad, trouble, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, we, your), 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:pg7277:29:84
# text = ‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ replied the toad; ‘tell me your trouble and we’ll see.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	too	too	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
11	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
17	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	iobj	_	_
18	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	trouble	trouble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | imperative · do-support | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of that; sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past |  | the toad |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent toad=Topic |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive |  | your trouble | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient trouble=Topic |
| 4 | **see** | future | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **trouble** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom trouble «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 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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