---
title: And they answered civilly, though they were so terrified that they h… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And they answered civilly, though they were so terrified that they hid behind one another, and said: Who acts: children. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch (28), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch (28), sentence 22

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And they answered civilly, though they were so terrified that they hid behind one another, and said:

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**Who acts:** children · **What happens:** answer, be, hide, say · **To what, where:** one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch (28). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children), 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:pg640:39:22
# text = And they answered civilly, though they were so terrified that they hid behind one another, and said:
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
4	civilly	civilly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	terrified	terrified	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	hid	hide	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
14	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	obj	_	_
16	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	15	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  | civilly *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  | terrified *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **hide** | past | children *= child* | one |  |  |  |  | vn concealment-16-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Patient |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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