---
title: Then the claws relaxed their hold, and the face disappeared in the d… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the claws relaxed their hold, and the face disappeared in the depths. Who acts: claws, face. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 2, sentence 26

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then the claws relaxed their hold, and the face disappeared in the depths.

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**Who acts:** claws, face · **What happens:** relax, disappear, hold · **To what, where:** hold, depths

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (claws, face), 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:pg7277:27:26
# text = Then the claws relaxed their hold, and the face disappeared in the depths.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	claws	claw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	relaxed	relax	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	disappeared	disappear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	depths	depth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **relax** | past | the claws | claws's hold |  |  | then |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus hold=Experiencer |
| 2 | **disappear** | past | the face |  |  | the depths |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **hold** |  | claws *= claw* |  |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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