---
title: As he was walking home with it slung over his shoulder, he heard a s… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As he was walking home with it slung over his shoulder, he heard a sound of steps stealthily creeping after him. Who acts: Blacky, kettle, steps. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Little Pigs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/13/65/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Three Little Pigs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/13/) / 65

# The Green Fairy Book, The Three Little Pigs, sentence 65

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
As he was walking home with it slung over his shoulder, he heard a sound of steps stealthily creeping after him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Blacky, kettle, steps · **What happens:** walk, sling, hear, creep · **To what, where:** shoulder, sound

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Little Pigs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Blacky, kettle, steps), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:13:65
# text = As he was walking home with it slung over his shoulder, he heard a sound of steps stealthily creeping after him.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	walking	walk	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
5	home	home	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	slung	sling	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
9	over	over	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	shoulder	shoulder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
19	stealthily	stealthily	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	creeping	creep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	acl	_	_
21	after	after	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **walk** | past · progressive | Blacky |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sling** | past | kettle |  |  | Blacky's shoulder |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent over shoulder=Destination |
| 3 | **hear** | past | Blacky | a sound of steps |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer sound=Stimulus |
| 4 | **creep** | gerund | steps *not said here* |  |  |  | after Blacky | stealthily *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 64](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/13/64/)
- next →: [sentence 66](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/13/66/)
- ↑ back to [The Three Little Pigs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/13/)