---
title: And the cat, when asked, agreed there was nothing she would hate so… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And the cat, when asked, agreed there was nothing she would hate so much. Who acts: cat, nothing, duck. 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 74

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And the cat, when asked, agreed there was nothing she would hate so much.

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**Who acts:** cat, nothing, duck · **What happens:** ask, agree, be, hate · **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 (cat, nothing, duck), 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:pg3027:9:74
# text = And the cat, when asked, agreed there was nothing she would hate so much.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
6	asked	ask	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	agreed	agree	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
10	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
11	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	nsubj	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	hate	hate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	much	much	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **agree** *speech: agree* | past | the cat |  |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **hate** | would | duck |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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