---
title: ‘Mother, you have often declared that I was too stupid to catch a wo… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Mother, you have often declared that I was too stupid to catch a wolf by the tail. Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, 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/pg3454/12/18/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 18

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‘Mother, you have often declared that I was too stupid to catch a wolf by the tail.

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** declare, be, catch · **To what, where:** wolf

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg3454:12:18
# text = ‘Mother, you have often declared that I was too stupid to catch a wolf by the tail.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	often	often	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	declared	declare	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	too	too	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	stupid	stupid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	advcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	by	by	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **declare** *speech: other* | present · perfect | you |  |  |  |  | often *property* | vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | I |  |  |  |  | stupid *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **catch** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | a wolf |  |  |  | by the tail | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wolf=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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