---
title: And no man dared kill the cat, which grew bolder and bolder, and at… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And no man dared kill the cat, which grew bolder and bolder, and at last came into the town to look for its prey. Who acts: man, cat. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 170

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And no man dared kill the cat, which grew bolder and bolder, and at last came into the town to look for its prey.

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**Who acts:** man, cat · **What happens:** dare, kill, grow, come, look · **To what, where:** cat, last

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, cat), 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:pg641:29:170
# text = And no man dared kill the cat, which grew bolder and bolder, and at last came into the town to look for its prey.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	dared	dare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	bolder	bold	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	xcomp	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	bolder	bold	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	obl	_	_
18	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
19	into	into	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
24	for	for	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	prey	prey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dare** | past | no man |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **kill** | infinitive | no man *not said here* | the cat |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cat=Theme |
| 3 | **grow** | past | the cat |  |  |  |  | bold *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **come** | past | no man *not said here* |  |  | last |  | into the town | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into town=Initial\_Location |
| 5 | **look** | to-infinitive | no man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for town's prey | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for prey=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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