---
title: He paused to listen, and heard the King of the Ants complaining: ‘If… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He paused to listen, and heard the King of the Ants complaining: ‘If only men with their awkward beasts would keep clear of us! Who acts: haste, Ants, men. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The White Snake, sentence 29

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He paused to listen, and heard the King of the Ants complaining: ‘If only men with their awkward beasts would keep clear of us!

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**Who acts:** haste, Ants, men · **What happens:** pause, listen, hear, complain, keep · **To what, where:** King

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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, Ants, men), 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:pg7277:50:29
# text = He paused to listen, and heard the King of the Ants complaining: ‘If only men with their awkward beasts would keep clear of us!
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	paused	pause	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Ants	ant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
13	complaining	complain	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	24	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
17	only	only	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
21	awkward	awkward	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	beasts	beast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	_
23	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
25	clear	clear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	xcomp	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pause** | past | haste |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **listen** | to-infinitive | haste *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hear** | past |  | the King |  |  |  | of the Ants | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer king=Stimulus |
| 4 | **complain** *speech: other* | gerund | the Ants *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn complain-37.8 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **keep** *a condition, not said to happen* | would | men with men's awkward beasts |  |  |  |  | clear *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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