---
title: The old man was nearly beside himself with horror, while his wife sa… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old man was nearly beside himself with horror, while his wife sat down and sobbed with grief and disappointment. Who acts: old man, wife. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 99

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The old man was nearly beside himself with horror, while his wife sat down and sobbed with grief and disappointment.

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**Who acts:** old man, wife · **What happens:** be, sit down, sob

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, wife), 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:pg2435:9:99
# text = The old man was nearly beside himself with horror, while his wife sat down and sobbed with grief and disappointment.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	14	parataxis	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	horror	horror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	down	down	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	sobbed	sob	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	conj	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	grief	grief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	disappointment	disappointment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the old man |  |  |  |  | beside hermit; with horror; nearly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit down** | past | hermit's wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **sob** | participle | hermit's wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with grief and disappointment | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «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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