---
title: The place was so infested with them as to be scarce worth living in. — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The place was so infested with them as to be scarce worth living in. Who acts: scarce worth. 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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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, sentence 4

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The place was so infested with them as to be scarce worth living in.

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**Who acts:** scarce worth · **What happens:** infest, be, live in · **To what, where:** place, scarce worth

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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: who acts (scarce worth), 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:pg14241:15:4
# text = The place was so infested with them as to be scarce worth living in.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	infested	infest	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	cop	_	_
11	scarce	scarce	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	worth	worth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	_
13	living	live	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
14	in	in	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **infest** | past · passive |  | the place |  |  |  | with rats *= rat* | vn fill-9.8 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with they=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | scarce worth |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **live in** | gerund | scarce worth *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «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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