---
title: The Lion replied: ‘They knew they were being tried, and they did vio… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Lion replied: ‘They knew they were being tried, and they did violence to their feelings.’ Who acts: Lion, wheels. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Huntsmen, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Twelve Huntsmen, sentence 40

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The Lion replied: ‘They knew they were being tried, and they did violence to their feelings.’

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**Who acts:** Lion, wheels · **What happens:** reply, know, try, do · **To what, where:** wheels, violence · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Huntsmen. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lion, wheels), 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:pg7277:43:40
# text = The Lion replied: ‘They knew they were being tried, and they did violence to their feelings.’
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Lion	Lion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
5	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
10	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	tried	try	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	violence	violence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	feelings	feeling	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the Lion |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **know** | past | wheels *= wheel* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **try** | past · passive |  | wheels *= wheel* |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 4 | **do** | past | wheels *= wheel* | violence |  |  |  | to wheels's feelings | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent violence=Eventuality |

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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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