---
title: As he lay thinking, he saw a spider over his head, making ready to w… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: As he lay thinking, he saw a spider over his head, making ready to weave her web. Who acts: use. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Bruce and the Spider., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Bruce and the Spider., sentence 10

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As he lay thinking, he saw a spider over his head, making ready to weave her web.

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**Who acts:** use · **What happens:** lie, think, see, make, weave · **To what, where:** spider, head, web

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Bruce and the Spider.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (use), 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:pg18442:12:10
# text = As he lay thinking, he saw a spider over his head, making ready to weave her web.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	spider	spider	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	over	over	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
15	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	weave	weave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	web	web	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | use |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | use *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **see** | past | use | a spider |  | use's head |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer spider=Stimulus |
| 4 | **make** | gerund | use *not said here* |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 5 | **weave** | to-infinitive | use *not said here* | Scotland's web |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent web=Product |

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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:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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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