---
title: While he was still writing he heard a voice which attracted his atte… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While he was still writing he heard a voice which attracted his attention in spite of himself. Who acts: Love, voice. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3, sentence 20

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While he was still writing he heard a voice which attracted his attention in spite of himself.

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**Who acts:** Love, voice · **What happens:** write, hear, attract, attend, spite · **To what, where:** voice, attention, spite, Love

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Love, voice), 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:pg503:7:20
# text = While he was still writing he heard a voice which attracted his attention in spite of himself.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	still	still	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	writing	write	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	attracted	attract	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	attention	attention	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	spite	spite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** | past · progressive | Love |  |  |  | still |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hear** | past | Love | a voice |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer voice=Stimulus |
| 3 | **attract** | past | a voice | Love's attention |  | spite of Love |  |  | vn lure-59.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent attention=Patient |
| 4 | **attend** |  | Love |  |  |  |  |  | nom attention «cognition intransitive»: poss=agent |
| 5 | **spite** |  |  | Love |  |  |  |  | nom spite «feeling transitive»: of=patient |

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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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