---
title: The monkey shrank back horrified at these words and asked the jelly-… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The monkey shrank back horrified at these words and asked the jelly-fish what crime he had committed that deserved death. Who acts: turtle, that. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Monkey and the Jelly-fish, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Monkey and the Jelly-fish, sentence 26

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The monkey shrank back horrified at these words and asked the jelly-fish what crime he had committed that deserved death.

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**Who acts:** turtle, that · **What happens:** horrify, ask, have, deserve · **To what, where:** monkey, words, crime, jelly fish, death

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Monkey and the Jelly-fish. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (turtle, that), 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:pg641:32:26
# text = The monkey shrank back horrified at these words and asked the jelly-fish what crime he had committed that deserved death.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	monkey	monkey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	shrank	shrink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	horrified	horrify	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	jelly	jelly	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
15	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	16	det	_	_
16	crime	crime	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
19	committed	committed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	xcomp	_	_
20	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
21	deserved	deserve	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	ccomp	_	_
22	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **horrify** | past · passive |  | the monkey |  | this words |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  | what crime | the jelly fish |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | turtle |  |  |  |  | committed *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **deserve** | past | that | death |  |  |  |  | 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 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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