---
title: The fox soon heard him coming, and this time he wished that the rein… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The fox soon heard him coming, and this time he wished that the reindeer might fall and break its leg. Who acts: fox, Lapp, reindeer. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, 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/pg3282/27/38/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 38

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The fox soon heard him coming, and this time he wished that the reindeer might fall and break its leg.

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**Who acts:** fox, Lapp, reindeer · **What happens:** hear, come, wish, fall, break · **To what, where:** Lapp, leg

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox, Lapp, reindeer), 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:pg3282:27:38
# text = The fox soon heard him coming, and this time he wished that the reindeer might fall and break its leg.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	coming	come	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl:unmarked	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	conj	_	_
20	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	leg	leg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | the fox | Lapp |  |  |  | soon *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | gerund | Lapp *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **wish** | past | fox |  |  |  | time |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **fall** | might | the reindeer |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **break** | infinitive | the reindeer *not said here* | reindeer's leg |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer leg=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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