---
title: Taking one of his hind feet between his two front paws, he said soft… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Taking one of his hind feet between his two front paws, he said softly: Who acts: bear. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 81

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Taking one of his hind feet between his two front paws, he said softly:

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**Who acts:** bear · **What happens:** take, say · **To what, where:** one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bear), 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:pg3282:26:81
# text = Taking one of his hind feet between his two front paws, he said softly:
1	Taking	take	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	1	obj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	hind	hind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
7	between	between	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
9	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
10	front	front	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	paws	paw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	softly	softly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | gerund | bear *not said here* | one of bear's hind feet between bear's two front paws |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | bear |  |  |  |  | softly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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