---
title: He was very tired and hungry, and he begged the wood-cut-ter's wife… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He was very tired and hungry, and he begged the wood-cut-ter's wife to give him something to eat and a place to sleep in her hut. Who acts: king. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Alfred and the Cakes., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/13/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [King Alfred and the Cakes.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/) / 13

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, King Alfred and the Cakes., sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He was very tired and hungry, and he begged the wood-cut-ter's wife to give him something to eat and a place to sleep in her hut.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** be, beg, give, eat, sleep · **To what, where:** wife, something, king, hut · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Alfred and the Cakes.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:3:13
# text = He was very tired and hungry, and he begged the wood-cut-ter's wife to give him something to eat and a place to sleep in her hut.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	tired	tired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
12	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	cut	cut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	ter	ter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	's	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	iobj	_	_
22	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	20	obj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	acl	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	_
28	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	sleep	sleep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	acl	_	_
30	in	in	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	32	nmod:poss	_	_
32	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | king |  |  |  |  | tired *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | king |  | the cut ter's wife |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent wife=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **give** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | something | king |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient something=Theme |
| 5 | **eat** | to-infinitive |  | something *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **sleep** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | wife's hut |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent in hut=Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/12/)
- next →: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/14/)
- ↑ back to [King Alfred and the Cakes.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/)