---
title: But Simon answered, ‘The foolish brute is as deaf as a post and is a… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But Simon answered, ‘The foolish brute is as deaf as a post and is always barking at nothing,’ and he refused to get up. Who acts: Simon, foolish brute. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The War of the Wolf and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The War of the Wolf and the Fox, sentence 55

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But Simon answered, ‘The foolish brute is as deaf as a post and is always barking at nothing,’ and he refused to get up.

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**Who acts:** Simon, foolish brute · **What happens:** answer, be, bark, refuse, not get up · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The War of the Wolf and the Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Simon, foolish brute), 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:pg7277:53:55
# text = But Simon answered, ‘The foolish brute is as deaf as a post and is always barking at nothing,’ and he refused to get up.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Simon	Simon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
5	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	brute	brute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	as	as	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	deaf	deaf	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	ccomp	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	post	post	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	18	advmod	_	_
18	barking	bark	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	conj	_	_
19	at	at	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	refused	refuse	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	_
28	up	up	ADP	RP	_	27	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Simon |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | present | the foolish brute |  |  |  |  | as a post; deaf *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **bark** | present · progressive | the foolish brute *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at nothing; always *property* | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Agent at nothing=Stimulus |
| 4 | **refuse** | past | Simon |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 5 | **not** **get up** | to-infinitive | Simon *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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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