---
title: It is all nonsense about it not laying eggs. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It is all nonsense about it not laying eggs. Who acts: purr. 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 64

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It is all nonsense about it not laying eggs.

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**Who acts:** purr · **What happens:** be, not lay · **To what, where:** eggs

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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 (purr), 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:pg3027:9:64
# text = It is all nonsense about it not laying eggs.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	all	all	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	nonsense	nonsense	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	about	about	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	laying	lay	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
9	eggs	egg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | purr |  |  |  |  | about bed; all, nonsense *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **lay** | gerund | purr *not said here* | eggs |  |  |  |  | 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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