---
title: Neither the mole nor the field-mouse learnt anything of this, for th… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Neither the mole nor the field-mouse learnt anything of this, for they could not bear the poor swallow. Who acts: mole, birds. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), sentence 185

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Neither the mole nor the field-mouse learnt anything of this, for they could not bear the poor swallow.

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**Who acts:** mole, birds · **What happens:** learn, not bear · **To what, where:** anything, poor swallow

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mole, birds), 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:pg640:47:185
# text = Neither the mole nor the field-mouse learnt anything of this, for they could not bear the poor swallow.
1	Neither	neither	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	9	cc:preconj	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	mole	mole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
4	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	8	cc	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
9	learnt	learn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	9	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	bear	bear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	swallow	swallow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **learn** | past | the mole nor the field mouse | anything |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **bear** | could | birds *= bird* | the poor swallow |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent swallow=Patient |

<!-- .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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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