---
title: The snakes are too large, and the lizards too lively for us to catch. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The snakes are too large, and the lizards too lively for us to catch. Who acts: snakes, lizards, us. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 2, sentence 52

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The snakes are too large, and the lizards too lively for us to catch.

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**Who acts:** snakes, lizards, us · **What happens:** be, catch

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (snakes, lizards, us), 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:pg27200:84:52
# text = The snakes are too large, and the lizards too lively for us to catch.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	snakes	snake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	too	too	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	lizards	lizard	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
10	too	too	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	lively	lively	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
12	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | the snakes |  |  |  |  | large *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the lizards |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **catch** | to-infinitive | us |  |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: 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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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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