---
title: The Shifty Lad was too clever for them all, and if they laid traps h… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Shifty Lad was too clever for them all, and if they laid traps he laid better ones. Who acts: Shifty Lad, friends, Lad. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 2, 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/pg3454/2/90/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 90

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The Shifty Lad was too clever for them all, and if they laid traps he laid better ones.

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**Who acts:** Shifty Lad, friends, Lad · **What happens:** be, lay · **To what, where:** traps, better ones

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Shifty Lad, friends, Lad), 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:pg3454:2:90
# text = The Shifty Lad was too clever for them all, and if they laid traps he laid better ones.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Shifty	shifty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Lad	Lad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	too	too	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	_
9	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
15	traps	trap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
18	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	19	amod	_	_
19	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Shifty Lad |  |  |  |  | for friends *= friend*; clever *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **lay** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | friends *= friend* | traps |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent trap=Result |
| 3 | **lay** | past | Lad | better ones |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Result |

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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 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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