diff --git a/spacy/syntax/parser.pyx b/spacy/syntax/parser.pyx
index 6fc17c282..f75afbdf7 100644
--- a/spacy/syntax/parser.pyx
+++ b/spacy/syntax/parser.pyx
@@ -304,14 +304,13 @@ cdef class StepwiseState:
 
 
 class ParserStateError(ValueError):
-    def __repr__(self):
-        raise ValueError(
-            "Error analysing doc -- no valid actions available. This should "
-            "never happen, so please report the error on the issue tracker. "
-            "Here's the thread to do so --- reopen it if it's closed:\n"
-            "https://github.com/spacy-io/spaCy/issues/429\n"
-            "Please include the text that the parser failed on, which is:\n"
-            "%s" % repr(self.args[0].text))
+    def __init__(self, doc):
+        self.message = ("Error analysing doc -- no valid actions available. This should "
+                        "never happen, so please report the error on the issue tracker. "
+                        "Here's the thread to do so --- reopen it if it's closed:\n"
+                        "https://github.com/spacy-io/spaCy/issues/429\n"
+                        "Please include the text that the parser failed on, which is:\n"
+                        "%s" % repr(doc.text))
 
 
 cdef int _arg_max_clas(const weight_t* scores, int move, const Transition* actions,