---
title: But one of the beasts whose ears were longer than the rest caught th… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But one of the beasts whose ears were longer than the rest caught the words, and went to tell Big Lion about it. Who acts: one. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/54/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 54

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But one of the beasts whose ears were longer than the rest caught the words, and went to tell Big Lion about it.

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**Who acts:** one · **What happens:** be, catch, go, tell · **To what, where:** words, Big Lion · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one), 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:pg5615:35:54
# text = But one of the beasts whose ears were longer than the rest caught the words, and went to tell Big Lion about it.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	beasts	beast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
6	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	13	advmod	_	_
10	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	rest	rest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	Big	Big	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	Lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	about	about	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **catch** | past | one of the beasts and the beasts and ears's ears | the words |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Theme |
| 3 | **go** | past | one of the beasts and the beasts and ears's ears *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | one of the beasts and the beasts and ears's ears *not said here* |  | Big Lion |  |  | about rest | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent lion=Recipient about it=Topic |

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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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