---
title: “There is a bear sitting on that tree,” he whispered softly. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “There is a bear sitting on that tree,” he whispered softly. Who acts: bear. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, 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/pg3282/28/80/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 80

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“There is a bear sitting on that tree,” he whispered softly.

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**Who acts:** bear · **What happens:** be, sit, whisper · **To what, where:** tree · **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 28. 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:pg3282:28:80
# text = “There is a bear sitting on that tree,” he whispered softly.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bear	bear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
6	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
9	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	softly	softly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | present | a bear |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** *in a quote* | gerund | a bear *not said here* |  |  | that tree |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on tree=Location |
| 3 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | past | bear |  |  |  |  | softly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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