---
title: While he was eating and drinking, there came by an old man, yet more… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While he was eating and drinking, there came by an old man, yet more wretched than the first, and begged for a few mouthfuls. Who acts: beggar, old man. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 104

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While he was eating and drinking, there came by an old man, yet more wretched than the first, and begged for a few mouthfuls.

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**Who acts:** beggar, old man · **What happens:** eat, drink, come by, beg

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (beggar, old man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2435:1854`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2435:21:104
# text = While he was eating and drinking, there came by an old man, yet more wretched than the first, and begged for a few mouthfuls.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	drinking	drink	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	by	by	ADV	RB	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	17	advmod	_	_
17	wretched	wretched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
18	than	than	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	17	obl	_	_
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
24	for	for	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	mouthfuls	mouthful	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	_
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** | past · progressive | beggar |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **drink** | gerund | beggar *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **come by** | past | a old man |  |  | there |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | a old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for a few mouthfuls | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V PP.Topic»: agent=Agent for mouthful=Topic |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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