---
title: Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat’s tail is the man she… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat’s tail is the man she is destined to marry.” Who acts: Whoever, man. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, sentence 5

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Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat’s tail is the man she is destined to marry.”

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**Who acts:** Whoever, man · **What happens:** be, tread, destine, marry · **To what, where:** man, tail, cat

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Whoever, man), 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:pg503:3:5
# text = Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat’s tail is the man she is destined to marry.”
1	Whoever	whoever	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	tread	tread	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
9	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’s	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	ccomp	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	destined	destine	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl:relcl	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Whoever |  |  |  |  | clever, enough *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **tread** | to-infinitive | Whoever *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | present | Whoever *not said here* | the man |  | that cat's tail |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **destine** | present · passive | the man *not said here* | cat |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **marry** | to-infinitive | the man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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