---
title: When the Black Ant came, he shook himself, and behold, he had a twis… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When the Black Ant came, he shook himself, and behold, he had a twisted leg, and a hump back, and was as black as the ant. Who acts: Black Ant, Ant. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 19, 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/pg3282/19/121/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 19, sentence 121

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When the Black Ant came, he shook himself, and behold, he had a twisted leg, and a hump back, and was as black as the ant.

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**Who acts:** Black Ant, Ant · **What happens:** come, shake, have, be · **To what, where:** Ant, twisted leg

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Black Ant, Ant), 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:pg3282:19:121
# text = When the Black Ant came, he shook himself, and behold, he had a twisted leg, and a hump back, and was as black as the ant.
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	5	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	Black	Black	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	Ant	Ant	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	behold	behold	INTJ	UH	_	15	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	twisted	twisted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	leg	leg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	hump	hump	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
23	back	back	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
26	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
27	as	as	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	_
28	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	parataxis	_	_
29	as	as	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	ant	ant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the Black Ant |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **shake** | past | Ant | Ant |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent himself=Patient |
| 3 | **have** | past | Ant | a twisted leg |  |  |  | a hump *obl* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leg=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | as the ant; black *property* | tree rules |

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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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