---
title: The wolf stood still for a few minutes, for he was trembling all ove… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The wolf stood still for a few minutes, for he was trembling all over, and then crept quietly back to his cave. Who acts: wolf. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg3282/21/12/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 12

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The wolf stood still for a few minutes, for he was trembling all over, and then crept quietly back to his cave.

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**Who acts:** wolf · **What happens:** stand, tremble, creep back · **To what, where:** cave

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wolf), 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:pg3282:21:12
# text = The wolf stood still for a few minutes, for he was trembling all over, and then crept quietly back to his cave.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	still	still	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	minutes	minute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	trembling	tremble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
14	all	all	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	over	over	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	19	advmod	_	_
19	crept	creep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
20	quietly	quietly	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	back	back	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | the wolf |  |  |  | still; minute |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **tremble** | past · progressive | wolf |  |  |  |  | over *property* | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **creep back** | past |  |  |  | wolf's cave | then | quietly *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to cave=Destination |

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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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