---
title: The queen had never before heard an animal speak, and was struck dum… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The queen had never before heard an animal speak, and was struck dumb with surprise. Who acts: queen. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 22, sentence 38

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The queen had never before heard an animal speak, and was struck dumb with surprise.

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**Who acts:** queen · **What happens:** hear, strike · **To what, where:** animal speak

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (queen), 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:pg3027:22:38
# text = The queen had never before heard an animal speak, and was struck dumb with surprise.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	before	before	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	speak	speak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	struck	strike	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	_
14	dumb	dumb	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	xcomp	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	surprise	surprise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past · perfect | the queen | a animal speak |  |  |  | before *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer speak=Stimulus |
| 2 | **strike** | past · passive | the queen *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with surprise; dumb *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: with surprise=Theme |

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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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