---
title: "Honesty's the best policy!" quoth Ivan, as he skipped about in his… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Honesty's the best policy!" quoth Ivan, as he skipped about in his new quarters. " Who acts: Honesty, best policy, Ivan. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Tale of Ivan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Tale of Ivan, sentence 65

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"Honesty's the best policy!" quoth Ivan, as he skipped about in his new quarters. "

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**Who acts:** Honesty, best policy, Ivan · **What happens:** be, quoth, skip · **To what, where:** best policy, Ivan

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Tale of Ivan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Honesty, best policy, Ivan), 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:pg7885:26:65
# text = "Honesty's the best policy!" quoth Ivan, as he skipped about in his new quarters. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Honesty	honesty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	amod	_	_
6	policy	policy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	quoth	quoth	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	Ivan	Ivan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	skipped	skip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
15	about	about	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	quarters	quarter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Honesty | the best policy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **quoth** | infinitive | the best policy | Ivan |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **skip** | past | Ivan |  |  |  |  | about Ivan's new quarters | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme about quarter=Trajectory |

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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:** «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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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