---
title: Hearing the hare’s words, a host of animals were frightened. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Hearing the hare’s words, a host of animals were frightened. Who acts: hare. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 11, sentence 6

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Hearing the hare’s words, a host of animals were frightened.

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**Who acts:** hare · **What happens:** hear, frighten, word · **To what, where:** words, host

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hare), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg74064:11:6
# text = Hearing the hare’s words, a host of animals were frightened.
1	Hearing	hear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	hare	hare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	host	host	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	frightened	frighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | gerund |  | the hare's words |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer word=Stimulus |
| 2 | **frighten** | past · passive |  | a host of animals |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 3 | **word** |  | the hare |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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 grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Project Gutenberg book 74064 (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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