---
title: They scarce dared to speak or turn their heads. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They scarce dared to speak or turn their heads. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 54

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They scarce dared to speak or turn their heads.

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**What happens:** dare, speak, turn · **To what, where:** birds, heads · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg503:33:54
# text = They scarce dared to speak or turn their heads.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	scarce	scarce	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	dared	dare	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dare** | present · passive |  | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **turn** | infinitive |  | birds's heads |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent head=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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