---
title: The slothful fellow would do nothing but sit in the chimney-corner,… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The slothful fellow would do nothing but sit in the chimney-corner, and eat as much at a time as would serve four or five ordinary men. Who acts: slothful fellow. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/18/104/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, sentence 104

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The slothful fellow would do nothing but sit in the chimney-corner, and eat as much at a time as would serve four or five ordinary men.

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**Who acts:** slothful fellow · **What happens:** do, sit, eat, serve · **To what, where:** nothing, chimney corner, four ordinary men

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (slothful fellow), 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:pg14241:18:104
# text = The slothful fellow would do nothing but sit in the chimney-corner, and eat as much at a time as would serve four or five ordinary men.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	slothful	slothful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	5	obj	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	sit	sit	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	chimney	chimney	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	corner	corner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	eat	eat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
17	as	as	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	much	much	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
19	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
22	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
23	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
25	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	29	nummod	_	_
26	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	conj	_	_
28	ordinary	ordinary	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | would | the slothful fellow | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |
| 2 | **sit** | present | the slothful fellow *not said here* |  |  | the chimney corner |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in corner=Location |
| 3 | **eat** | present |  |  |  |  | time |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **serve** | would |  | four ordinary men |  |  |  |  | vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Attribute |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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