---
title: As for getting near him there were too many rats. — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: As for getting near him there were too many rats. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/15/37/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, sentence 37

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As for getting near him there were too many rats.

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**What happens:** get, be · **To what, where:** many rats

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg14241:15:37
# text = As for getting near him there were too many rats.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
3	getting	get	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	0	root	_	_
4	near	near	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	7	expl	_	_
7	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	too	too	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	rats	rat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | gerund |  | many rats |  |  |  | near Nor | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer rat=Stimulus |
| 2 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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