---
title: So saying the old man sank back on his pillows and died. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So saying the old man sank back on his pillows and died. Who acts: old man. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 19, 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/pg3027/19/102/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 19, sentence 102

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So saying the old man sank back on his pillows and died.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** say, sink back, die · **To what, where:** pillows · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 19. 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), 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:pg3027:19:102
# text = So saying the old man sank back on his pillows and died.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	back	back	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	pillows	pillow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	died	die	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sink back** | past | the old man |  |  | Jack's pillows |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **die** | past | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=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:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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