---
title: ‘Then,’ said the second tailor, ‘if they are not black and white, no… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Then,’ said the second tailor, ‘if they are not black and white, no doubt they are red and brown, like my father’s Sunday coat.’ Who acts: tailors, doubt. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Clever Tailor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/51/13/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Story of a Clever Tailor](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/51/) / 13

# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of a Clever Tailor, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Then,’ said the second tailor, ‘if they are not black and white, no doubt they are red and brown, like my father’s Sunday coat.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** tailors, doubt · **What happens:** say, not be, be · **To what, where:** second tailor · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Clever Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tailors, doubt), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:51:13
# text = ‘Then,’ said the second tailor, ‘if they are not black and white, no doubt they are red and brown, like my father’s Sunday coat.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	second	second	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	8	amod	_	_
8	tailor	tailor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	20	det	_	_
20	doubt	doubt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
23	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	brown	brown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
27	like	like	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
28	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’s	's	PART	POS	_	29	case	_	_
31	Sunday	Sunday	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	32	compound	_	_
32	coat	coat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the second tailor |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent tailor=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | tailors *= tailor* |  |  |  |  | black *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | tailors *= tailor* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | present | no doubt |  |  |  |  | red *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | no doubt *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/51/12/)
- next →: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/51/14/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of a Clever Tailor](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/51/)