---
title: It calls itself a duckling; but it can neither lay eggs nor purr! — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It calls itself a duckling; but it can neither lay eggs nor purr! Who acts: creature. 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 61

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It calls itself a duckling; but it can neither lay eggs nor purr!

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**Who acts:** creature · **What happens:** call, lay · **To what, where:** creature, eggs · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (creature), 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:pg3027:9:61
# text = It calls itself a duckling; but it can neither lay eggs nor purr!
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	calls	call	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	2	obj	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	duckling	duckling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	neither	neither	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
12	eggs	egg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	14	cc	_	_
14	purr	purr	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** | present | creature | creature |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent itself=Recipient |
| 2 | **lay** | can | creature | eggs nor purr |  |  |  | neither *property* | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent egg=Result |

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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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