---
title: But busy though they seemed, they found time to whisper to each other: — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But busy though they seemed, they found time to whisper to each other: Who acts: innkeeper. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 50

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But busy though they seemed, they found time to whisper to each other:

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**Who acts:** innkeeper · **What happens:** seem, find, whisper · **To what, where:** each

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (innkeeper), 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:pg3282:9:50
# text = But busy though they seemed, they found time to whisper to each other:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	2	cc	_	_
2	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
3	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	whisper	whisper	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	11	obl	_	_
14	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | innkeeper |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | past | innkeeper |  |  |  | time |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | innkeeper *not said here* |  | each |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to each=Recipient |

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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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