---
title: “You will find it a very difficult matter to get hold of the hens,”… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “You will find it a very difficult matter to get hold of the hens,” replied the fox. Who acts: You, fox. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23, 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/pg3282/23/16/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 16

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“You will find it a very difficult matter to get hold of the hens,” replied the fox.

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**Who acts:** You, fox · **What happens:** find, get, reply, hold · **To what, where:** counsel, hold, hens · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, fox), 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:pg3282:23:16
# text = “You will find it a very difficult matter to get hold of the hens,” replied the fox.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	difficult	difficult	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl	_	_
12	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	hens	hen	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
18	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** *in a quote* | future | You | counsel |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent it=Theme matter=Attribute |
| 2 | **get** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | You *not said here* | hold of the hens |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer hold=Stimulus |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **hold** *in a quote* |  |  | the hens |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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