---
title: To confess the truth, few people believed him when he said it. — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: To confess the truth, few people believed him when he said it. Who acts: few people, Jason. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Golden Fleece., part 3, sentence 13

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To confess the truth, few people believed him when he said it.

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**Who acts:** few people, Jason · **What happens:** confess, believe, say · **To what, where:** truth, Jason · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (few people, Jason), 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:pg976:27:13
# text = To confess the truth, few people believed him when he said it.
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	confess	confess	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	believed	believe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **confess** | to-infinitive |  | the truth |  |  |  |  | vn confess-37.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent truth=Topic |
| 2 | **believe** | past | few people | Jason |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Jason | truth |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent it=Topic |

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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:** «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (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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