---
title: Too long a tongue is worse than too long a nose, and I remember when… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Too long a tongue is worse than too long a nose, and I remember when I was young that I was so much admired for not being a great chatterer. Who acts: tongue, I. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, with its dependency tree and the pragmat
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, sentence 52

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Too long a tongue is worse than too long a nose, and I remember when I was young that I was so much admired for not being a great chatterer.

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**Who acts:** tongue, I · **What happens:** be, remember, admire, not be · **To what, where:** I · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (tongue, 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:pg503:3:52
# text = Too long a tongue is worse than too long a nose, and I remember when I was young that I was so much admired for not being a great chatterer.
1	Too	too	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
7	than	than	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	too	too	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	11	advmod	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	remember	remember	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
16	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	ccomp	_	_
20	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux:pass	_	_
23	so	so	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	much	much	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	admired	admire	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	advcl	_	_
26	for	for	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
27	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	31	advmod	_	_
28	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	31	cop	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	chatterer	chatterer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | a tongue |  |  |  |  | than a nose; bad, long *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **remember** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | I |  |  |  |  | young *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **admire** | past · passive |  | I |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus |
| 5 | **not** **is** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | for a great chatterer | tree rules |

<!-- .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 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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