---
title: “I’ve often shot a sparrow, which is a much more difficult thing to… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I’ve often shot a sparrow, which is a much more difficult thing to do.” Who acts: nothing, sparrow. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 29, 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/pg2435/29/138/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 138

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I’ve often shot a sparrow, which is a much more difficult thing to do.”

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**Who acts:** nothing, sparrow · **What happens:** have, shot, be, do · **To what, where:** sparrow, difficult thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nothing, sparrow), 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:pg2435:29:138
# text = “I’ve often shot a sparrow, which is a much more difficult thing to do.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’ve	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	often	often	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	shot	shot	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	sparrow	sparrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
9	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
12	much	much	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	14	advmod	_	_
14	difficult	difficult	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	appos	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *in a quote* | present | nothing |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **shot** *in a quote* | present | nothing *not said here* | a sparrow |  |  |  | often *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | a sparrow | a difficult thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **do** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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