---
title: Then gradually he heard her creeping up behind him, and soon she was… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then gradually he heard her creeping up behind him, and soon she was in front. Who acts: Carrier, sun. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 92

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Then gradually he heard her creeping up behind him, and soon she was in front.

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**Who acts:** Carrier, sun · **What happens:** hear, creep up, be · **To what, where:** sun, front

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Carrier, sun), 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:pg3282:7:92
# text = Then gradually he heard her creeping up behind him, and soon she was in front.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	gradually	gradually	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	creeping	creep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	_
7	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	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 | Carrier | sun |  |  | then | gradually *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **creep up** | gerund | sun *not said here* |  |  |  |  | behind Carrier | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme behind he=Trajectory |
| 3 | **is** | past | sun |  |  | front |  | soon *property* | tree rules |

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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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