---
title: In the dark they keep starting at what seems to be a sudden clear ca… — The Wind in the Willows, chapter VII, part 1: Th… · tree and pragmatics
description: In the dark they keep starting at what seems to be a sudden clear call from a real voice. Who acts: shadows. A sentence of the lesson «The Wind in the Willows, chapter VII, part 1: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Portly is missing)» of the books course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tr
---

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# The Wind in the Willows, chapter VII, part 1: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Portly is missing), sentence 18

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In the dark they keep starting at what seems to be a sudden clear call from a real voice.

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**Who acts:** shadows · **What happens:** keep, start, seem, be · **To what, where:** dark, sudden clear call, real voice

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The Wind in the Willows, chapter VII, part 1: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Portly is missing)» of the books course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shadows), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:books:049-willows-ch7-part1-portly-is-missing.lesson:18
# text = In the dark they keep starting at what seems to be a sudden clear call from a real voice.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = books
# lesson = 049-willows-ch7-part1-portly-is-missing.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	dark	dark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	keep	keep	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	starting	start	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	xcomp	_	_
7	at	at	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	9	nsubj	_	_
9	seems	seem	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	cop	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	sudden	sudden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	clear	clear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	call	call	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	xcomp	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | present | shadows *= shadow* |  |  | the dark |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **start** | gerund | shadows *= shadow* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **seem** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | a sudden clear call |  | a real voice |  |  | 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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**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:books:049-willows-ch7-part1-portly-is-missing.lesson:18`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

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