---
title: So Big Lion sent for the little hare, and asked him what he meant by… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So Big Lion sent for the little hare, and asked him what he meant by talking like that. Who acts: Big Lion, hare. 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/pg5615/35/56/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 56

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So Big Lion sent for the little hare, and asked him what he meant by talking like that.

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**Who acts:** Big Lion, hare · **What happens:** send, ask, mean, talk · **To what, where:** hare · **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 (Big Lion, hare), 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:pg5615:35:56
# text = So Big Lion sent for the little hare, and asked him what he meant by talking like that.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	Big	Big	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Lion	Lion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	sent	send	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	hare	hare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	obj	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
16	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	talking	talk	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
18	like	like	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **send** | past | Big Lion |  |  |  |  | for the little hare | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Big Lion *not said here* |  | hare |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **mean** | past | hare |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 4 | **talk** | gerund | hare *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like that | vn talk-37.5 «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 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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