---
title: Though fish are generally supposed to be quite mute, he heard them g… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Though fish are generally supposed to be quite mute, he heard them grieving aloud at the prospect of dying in this wretched manner. Who acts: haste, fishes, prospect. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake, 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/pg7277/50/25/)

<!-- 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 White Snake](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/) / 25

# The Green Fairy Book, The White Snake, sentence 25

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Though fish are generally supposed to be quite mute, he heard them grieving aloud at the prospect of dying in this wretched manner.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** haste, fishes, prospect · **What happens:** suppose, be, hear, grieve, die · **To what, where:** fish, fishes, prospect

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (haste, fishes, prospect), 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:pg7277:50:25
# text = Though fish are generally supposed to be quite mute, he heard them grieving aloud at the prospect of dying in this wretched manner.
1	Though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	fish	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	generally	generally	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	supposed	suppose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
8	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	mute	mute	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	grieving	grieve	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	xcomp	_	_
15	aloud	aloud	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	prospect	prospect	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
20	dying	die	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	acl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	24	det	_	_
23	wretched	wretched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	manner	manner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **suppose** | present · passive |  | fish |  |  |  | generally *property* | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Attribute |
| 2 | **is** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | mute *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **hear** | past | haste | fishes *= fish* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **grieve** | gerund | fishes *= fish* *not said here* |  |  | the prospect |  | aloud *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **die** | gerund | the prospect *not said here* |  |  |  |  | in this wretched manner | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.patient V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in manner=Attribute |

<!-- .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 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/24/)
- next →: [sentence 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/26/)
- ↑ back to [The White Snake](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/)