---
title: But when good food was set before him he seemed to forget to eat. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But when good food was set before him he seemed to forget to eat. Who acts: father. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/17/54/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 54

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But when good food was set before him he seemed to forget to eat.

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**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** set, seem, forget, not eat · **To what, where:** good food

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father), 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:pg2435:17:54
# text = But when good food was set before him he seemed to forget to eat.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	set	set	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	advcl	_	_
7	before	before	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	forget	forget	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set** | past · passive |  | good food |  |  | before father |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme before he=Destination |
| 2 | **seem** | past | father |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **forget** | to-infinitive | father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **eat** | to-infinitive | father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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