---
title: Indeed, he hardly seemed to hear what they said. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Indeed, he hardly seemed to hear what they said. Who acts: King, subjects. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Bird, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Blue Bird, part 1, sentence 6

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Indeed, he hardly seemed to hear what they said.

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**Who acts:** King, subjects · **What happens:** seem, hear, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Bird, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, subjects), 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:pg7277:2:6
# text = Indeed, he hardly seemed to hear what they said.
1	Indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	obj	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | King |  |  |  |  | hardly, indeed *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **hear** | to-infinitive | King *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | subjects *= subject* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |

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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 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.

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