---
title: He was growing desperate, when he suddenly came upon a bear that was… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was growing desperate, when he suddenly came upon a bear that was lying asleep. Who acts: Wolverine, bear. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/117/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/) / 117

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 117

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He was growing desperate, when he suddenly came upon a bear that was lying asleep.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Wolverine, bear · **What happens:** grow, come, lie · **To what, where:** bear

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Wolverine, bear), 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:pg3282:16:117
# text = He was growing desperate, when he suddenly came upon a bear that was lying asleep.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	growing	grow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	desperate	desperate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bear	bear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past · progressive | Wolverine |  |  |  |  | desperate *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **come** | past | Wolverine |  |  | a bear |  | suddenly *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon bear=Location |
| 3 | **lie** | past · progressive | a bear |  |  |  |  | asleep *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 116](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/116/)
- next →: [sentence 118](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/118/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/)