---
title: The trees rustled in the darkness, the owls hooted, and she began to… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The trees rustled in the darkness, the owls hooted, and she began to be very much frightened. Who acts: trees, owls, tree. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 107

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The trees rustled in the darkness, the owls hooted, and she began to be very much frightened.

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**Who acts:** trees, owls, tree · **What happens:** rustle, hoot, begin, be · **To what, where:** darkness

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (trees, owls, tree), 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:pg5615:2:107
# text = The trees rustled in the darkness, the owls hooted, and she began to be very much frightened.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	rustled	rustle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	owls	owl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	hooted	hoot	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	much	much	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	frightened	frightened	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rustle** | past | the trees |  |  | the darkness |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in darkness=Location |
| 2 | **hoot** | past | the owls |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **begin** | past | tree |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is** | to-infinitive | tree *not said here* |  |  |  |  | frightened *property* | tree rules |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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