---
title: They have no lessons except in tracking and catching birds, beasts,… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They have no lessons except in tracking and catching birds, beasts, fishes, lizards, and snakes, all of which they eat. Who acts: troubles, snakes. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/1/9/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 9

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They have no lessons except in tracking and catching birds, beasts, fishes, lizards, and snakes, all of which they eat.

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**Who acts:** troubles, snakes · **What happens:** have, catch, eat · **To what, where:** lessons, birds

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (troubles, snakes), 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:pg3282:1:9
# text = They have no lessons except in tracking and catching birds, beasts, fishes, lizards, and snakes, all of which they eat.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	lessons	lesson	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	except	except	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	tracking	tracking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	catching	catch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	conj	_	_
10	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	beasts	beast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	fishes	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	lizards	lizard	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
19	snakes	snake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	23	det	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	25	nsubj	_	_
24	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	eat	eat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | troubles *= trouble* | no lessons |  |  |  | except tracking | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lesson=Patient |
| 2 | **catch** | gerund | troubles *= trouble* *not said here* | birds and beasts and fishes and lizards |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=Theme |
| 3 | **eat** | present | snakes |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: 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:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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