---
title: They fancied they heard on every side of them the houling of wolves… — The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault · tree and pragmatics
description: They fancied they heard on every side of them the houling of wolves coming to eat them up; they scarce dared to speak, or turn their heads. Who acts: birds, wolves. A sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/14/76/)

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# The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"\], sentence 76

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They fancied they heard on every side of them the houling of wolves coming to eat them up; they scarce dared to speak, or turn their heads.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** birds, wolves · **What happens:** fancy, hear, come, eat up, dare, speak · **To what, where:** houling, side, birds, heads · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, wolves), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg29021:14:76
# text = They fancied they heard on every side of them the houling of wolves coming to eat them up; they scarce dared to speak, or turn their heads.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	fancied	fancy	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	det	_	_
7	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nmod	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	houling	houling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	wolves	wolf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
14	coming	come	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	acl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj:pass	_	_
21	scarce	scarce	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux:pass	_	_
22	dared	dare	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	parataxis	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	turn	turn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	conj	_	_
28	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fancy** | past | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **hear** | past | birds *= bird* | the houling of wolves |  | every side of ways |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer houling=Stimulus |
| 3 | **come** | gerund | wolves *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **eat up** | to-infinitive | wolves *not said here* | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient |
| 5 | **dare** | present · passive |  | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 6 | **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **turn** | present |  | birds's heads |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent head=Theme |

<!-- .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 Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Project Gutenberg book 29021 (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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