---
title: There was silence for a few moments, and then the lion sat up, looki… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was silence for a few moments, and then the lion sat up, looking very great and wise. Who acts: silence, lion. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 18, sentence 68

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There was silence for a few moments, and then the lion sat up, looking very great and wise.

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**Who acts:** silence, lion · **What happens:** be, sit up, look

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (silence, 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:pg3027:18:68
# text = There was silence for a few moments, and then the lion sat up, looking very great and wise.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
4	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	moments	moment	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
14	up	up	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | silence |  |  | there | moment |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sit up** | past | the lion |  |  |  | then |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | the lion *not said here* |  |  |  |  | great *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |

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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:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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