---
title: In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay qu… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. Who acts: Mice, pastries. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, sentence 11

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In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe.

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**Who acts:** Mice, pastries · **What happens:** scurry, lay, dare, breathe · **To what, where:** great fear

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mice, pastries), 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:pg19994:13:11
# text = In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	scurried	scurry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	hiding	hiding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	14	advmod	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
15	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	still	still	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
17	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	daring	dare	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	breathe	breathe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scurry** | past | the Mice |  |  | great fear |  | to a hiding place | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to place=Destination |
| 2 | **lay** | present | pastries *= pastry* |  |  |  | still; time |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **dare** | gerund | pastries *= pastry* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **breathe** | to-infinitive | pastries *= pastry* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 19994 (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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