---
title: We are thirty sisters so exactly alike that our own father can hardl… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: We are thirty sisters so exactly alike that our own father can hardly distinguish us apart.’ Who acts: We, own father. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 2, sentence 113

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We are thirty sisters so exactly alike that our own father can hardly distinguish us apart.’

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**Who acts:** We, own father · **What happens:** be, distinguish · **To what, where:** thirty sisters, us

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, 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 (We, own father), 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:pg7277:27:113
# text = We are thirty sisters so exactly alike that our own father can hardly distinguish us apart.’
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	thirty	thirty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
4	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	exactly	exactly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	alike	alike	ADP	IN	_	5	fixed	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
9	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
12	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	distinguish	distinguish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
15	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	apart	apart	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | We | thirty sisters |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **distinguish** | can | our own father | us |  |  |  | apart, hardly *property* | vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Attribute we=Theme |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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