---
title: Most people are afraid of SOME thing, and bears and serpents were th… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Most people are afraid of SOME thing, and bears and serpents were the only creatures that caused the lion’s heart to tremble. Who acts: Most people, bears, only creatures, heart. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/28/92/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 92

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Most people are afraid of SOME thing, and bears and serpents were the only creatures that caused the lion’s heart to tremble.

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**Who acts:** Most people, bears, only creatures, heart · **What happens:** be, cause, tremble · **To what, where:** only creatures, heart

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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 (Most people, bears, only creatures, heart), 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:pg3282:28:92
# text = Most people are afraid of SOME thing, and bears and serpents were the only creatures that caused the lion’s heart to tremble.
1	Most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	2	amod	_	_
2	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	SOME	some	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
10	bears	bear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	serpents	serpent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	_
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	creatures	creature	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
18	caused	cause	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	's	PART	POS	_	20	case	_	_
22	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	tremble	tremble	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Most people |  |  |  |  | of SOME thing; afraid *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | bears and serpents | the only creatures |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **cause** | past | the only creatures | the lion's heart |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **tremble** | to-infinitive | the lion's heart *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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