---
title: Bellah felt as if fingers were tightening round her throat, but she… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Bellah felt as if fingers were tightening round her throat, but she managed to cry: Who acts: Bellah, fingers. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 34, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 34, sentence 105

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Bellah felt as if fingers were tightening round her throat, but she managed to cry:

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**Who acts:** Bellah, fingers · **What happens:** feel, tighten, manage, cry

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 34. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Bellah, fingers), 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:pg3454:34:105
# text = Bellah felt as if fingers were tightening round her throat, but she managed to cry:
1	Bellah	Bellah	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
4	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	tightening	tighten	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
8	round	round	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	throat	throat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	managed	manage	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feel** | past | Bellah |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **tighten** | past · progressive | fingers |  |  |  |  | round Bellah's throat | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **manage** | past | Bellah |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **cry** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | Bellah *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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