---
title: He was almost dead with fear, for the roars of the lion could al-rea… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He was almost dead with fear, for the roars of the lion could al-read-y be heard. Who acts: Androclus, lion. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Androclus and the Lion., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Androclus and the Lion., sentence 26

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He was almost dead with fear, for the roars of the lion could al-read-y be heard.

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**Who acts:** Androclus, lion · **What happens:** be, read, hear, roar · **To what, where:** al

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Androclus and the Lion.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Androclus, lion), 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:pg18442:30:26
# text = He was almost dead with fear, for the roars of the lion could al-read-y be heard.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	roars	roar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
15	al	Al	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	read	read	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	y	y	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	flat	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Androclus |  |  |  |  | with fear; almost, dead *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **read** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hear** | could · passive |  | al |  |  |  | for the roars of the lion | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus |
| 4 | **roar** |  | the lion |  |  |  |  |  | nom roar «event intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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