---
title: When the cat saw the wild boar’s ear, she pounced upon it, thinking… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When the cat saw the wild boar’s ear, she pounced upon it, thinking it was a mouse in the straw. Who acts: cat, boar, ear. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The War of the Wolf and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The War of the Wolf and the Fox, sentence 41

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When the cat saw the wild boar’s ear, she pounced upon it, thinking it was a mouse in the straw.

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**Who acts:** cat, boar, ear · **What happens:** see, pounce, think, be · **To what, where:** ear, mouse, straw · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The War of the Wolf and the Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cat, boar, ear), 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:pg7277:53:41
# text = When the cat saw the wild boar’s ear, she pounced upon it, thinking it was a mouse in the straw.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	boar	boar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’s	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	ear	ear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	pounced	pounce	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	ccomp	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	straw	straw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the cat | the wild boar's ear |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer ear=Stimulus |
| 2 | **pounce** | past | boar |  |  | ear |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon it=Trajectory |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | boar *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | past | ear | a mouse |  | the straw |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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