---
title: So the bear promised to lie very still; but the moment the cranberri… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So the bear promised to lie very still; but the moment the cranberries touched her eyes she sprang up with a roar. Who acts: bear, moment. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/17/21/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 21

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So the bear promised to lie very still; but the moment the cranberries touched her eyes she sprang up with a roar.

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**Who acts:** bear, moment · **What happens:** promise, lie, touch, spring up · **To what, where:** eyes

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bear, moment), 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:pg3282:17:21
# text = So the bear promised to lie very still; but the moment the cranberries touched her eyes she sprang up with a roar.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	bear	bear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	still	still	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	cranberries	cranberry	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
15	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
16	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	sprang	spring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
20	up	up	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	roar	roar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | the bear |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **lie** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the bear *not said here* |  |  |  | still |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **touch** | past | the moment and the cranberries | bear's eyes |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme eye=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **spring up** | past | bear |  |  |  |  | with a roar | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=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 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.

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