---
title: 'Is it nicer than this?' asked the duckling doubtfully. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'Is it nicer than this?' asked the duckling doubtfully. Who acts: feeding, nicer. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 9, sentence 36

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'Is it nicer than this?' asked the duckling doubtfully.

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**Who acts:** feeding, nicer · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** duckling

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (feeding, nicer), 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:pg3027:9:36
# text = 'Is it nicer than this?' asked the duckling doubtfully.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	nicer	nice	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	nsubj	_	_
5	than	than	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	duckling	duckling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	doubtfully	doubtfully	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | feeding |  |  |  |  | than this; nice *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | nicer | the duckling |  |  |  | doubtfully *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent duckling=Recipient |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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