---
title: At last he said to himself: “Men are sociable creatures, like bees o… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At last he said to himself: “Men are sociable creatures, like bees or ants. Who acts: gnome, Men. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 31, 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/pg3282/31/37/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 37

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At last he said to himself: “Men are sociable creatures, like bees or ants.

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**Who acts:** gnome, Men · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** gnome, last, sociable creatures · **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 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gnome, Men), 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:pg3282:31:37
# text = At last he said to himself: “Men are sociable creatures, like bees or ants.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
10	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	sociable	sociable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	creatures	creature	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	like	like	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	bees	bee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
16	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	ants	ant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | gnome |  | gnome | last |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to himself=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Men | sociable creatures and bees or ants |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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