---
title: But the King got very cross when he saw them whispering together, an… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the King got very cross when he saw them whispering together, and cried harshly: Who acts: King, battle. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Good Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Little Good Mouse, sentence 34

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But the King got very cross when he saw them whispering together, and cried harshly:

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**Who acts:** King, battle · **What happens:** get, see, whisper, cry · **To what, where:** King

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Good Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, battle), 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:pg540:22:34
# text = But the King got very cross when he saw them whispering together, and cried harshly:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	cross	cross	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	_
7	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
10	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	whispering	whisper	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	xcomp	_	_
12	together	together	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
16	harshly	harshly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | the King |  |  |  |  | cross *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **see** | past | battle | King |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | gerund | King *not said here* |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the King *not said here* |  |  |  |  | harshly *property* | 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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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