---
title: “He is only waiting for us to pass, to drop down on my back.” — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “He is only waiting for us to pass, to drop down on my back.” Who acts: bear, us. 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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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 81

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“He is only waiting for us to pass, to drop down on my back.”

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**Who acts:** bear, us · **What happens:** wait, pass, drop down · **To what, where:** back

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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, us), 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:pg3282:28:81
# text = “He is only waiting for us to pass, to drop down on my back.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	only	only	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	waiting	wait	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	drop	drop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
13	down	down	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wait** *in a quote* | present · progressive | bear |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pass** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | us |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **drop down** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | us *not said here* |  |  | my back |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme on back=Trajectory |

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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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