---
title: Many an anxious minute his brothers and sisters had looking for him,… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Many an anxious minute his brothers and sisters had looking for him, while his mother ran to and fro cackling in fear and dismay. Who acts: Many minute brothers, mother. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Half-chick, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Half-chick, sentence 16

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Many an anxious minute his brothers and sisters had looking for him, while his mother ran to and fro cackling in fear and dismay.

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**Who acts:** Many minute brothers, mother · **What happens:** have, look, run, cackle

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Half-chick. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Many minute brothers, mother), 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:pg7277:6:16
# text = Many an anxious minute his brothers and sisters had looking for him, while his mother ran to and fro cackling in fear and dismay.
1	Many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
2	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	anxious	anxious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	minute	minute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	acl:relcl	_	_
6	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
9	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	xcomp	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	fro	for	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
21	cackling	cackle	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	conj	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	dismay	dismay	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Many minute brothers and sisters |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **look** | gerund | Many minute brothers and sisters *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for Medio | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for he=Theme |
| 3 | **run** | past | Medio's mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **cackle** | gerund | Medio's mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  | in fear and dismay | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in fear=Theme |

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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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