---
title: “Only listen,” she said, holding the acorn to his ear. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Only listen,” she said, holding the acorn to his ear. Who acts: bidding. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 1, sentence 67

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“Only listen,” she said, holding the acorn to his ear.

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**Who acts:** bidding · **What happens:** listen, say, hold · **To what, where:** acorn · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bidding), 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:pg503:23:67
# text = “Only listen,” she said, holding the acorn to his ear.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Only	only	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	acorn	acorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	ear	ear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **listen** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | bidding |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **hold** | gerund | bidding *not said here* | the acorn |  |  |  | to king's ear | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent acorn=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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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