---
title: He made the wise man swear not to tell the matter to anyone, gave hi… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He made the wise man swear not to tell the matter to anyone, gave him a splendid robe, and dismissed him. Who acts: Selim, wise man. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of Caliph Stork, sentence 34

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He made the wise man swear not to tell the matter to anyone, gave him a splendid robe, and dismissed him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Selim, wise man · **What happens:** make, swear, not tell, give, dismiss · **To what, where:** wise man, matter, splendid robe, Selim · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Selim, wise man), 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:pg7277:7:34
# text = He made the wise man swear not to tell the matter to anyone, gave him a splendid robe, and dismissed him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	swear	swear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	iobj	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	splendid	splendid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	robe	robe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	dismissed	dismiss	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | Selim | the wise man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **swear** | infinitive | the wise man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | the wise man *not said here* |  | the matter |  |  | to anyone | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent matter=Topic to anyone=Recipient |
| 4 | **give** | past | Selim *not said here* | a splendid robe | Selim |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient robe=Theme |
| 5 | **dismiss** | past | Selim *not said here* | Selim |  |  |  |  | vn banish-10.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |

<!-- .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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