---
title: Neither cats nor dogs, nor poison nor traps, nor prayers nor candles… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Neither cats nor dogs, nor poison nor traps, nor prayers nor candles burnt to all the saints—nothing would do anything. Who acts: cats. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Ratcatcher, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Ratcatcher, sentence 7

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Neither cats nor dogs, nor poison nor traps, nor prayers nor candles burnt to all the saints—nothing would do anything.

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**Who acts:** cats · **What happens:** burnt, do · **To what, where:** prayers, anything

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Ratcatcher. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cats), 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:pg540:32:7
# text = Neither cats nor dogs, nor poison nor traps, nor prayers nor candles burnt to all the saints—nothing would do anything.
1	Neither	neither	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	2	det	_	_
2	cats	cat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
3	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	4	cc	_	_
4	dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	7	cc	_	_
7	poison	poison	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
8	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	9	cc	_	_
9	traps	trap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	12	cc	_	_
12	prayers	prayer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	_
13	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	14	cc	_	_
14	candles	candle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
15	burnt	burnt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	19	det:predet	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	saints	saint	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	23	nsubj	_	_
22	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
24	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	23	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **burnt** | participle |  | prayers nor candles *not said here* |  |  |  | to all saints | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | would | neither cats nor dogs nor poison nor traps nor prayers nor candles | anything |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Eventuality |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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