---
title: People began to take to their heels at the sight of tigers. — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: People began to take to their heels at the sight of tigers. Who acts: People. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 9, sentence 59

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People began to take to their heels at the sight of tigers.

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**Who acts:** People · **What happens:** begin, take, sight · **To what, where:** sight, tigers

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (People), 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:pg7128:15:59
# text = People began to take to their heels at the sight of tigers.
1	People	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	heels	heel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	tigers	tiger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | People |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **take** | to-infinitive | People *not said here* |  |  | the sight of tigers |  | to people's heels *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to heel=Result |
| 3 | **sight** |  |  | tigers |  |  |  |  | nom sight «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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:** «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7128 (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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