---
title: And he sank down on a pile of cushions while his wife and daughter k… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And he sank down on a pile of cushions while his wife and daughter knelt beside him. Who acts: prince, wife. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 29, 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/pg3027/29/41/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Orange Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/) / [Opening, part 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/29/) / 41

# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 29, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And he sank down on a pile of cushions while his wife and daughter knelt beside him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prince, wife · **What happens:** sink down, kneel · **To what, where:** pile

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, wife), 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:pg3027:29:41
# text = And he sank down on a pile of cushions while his wife and daughter knelt beside him.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	pile	pile	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	cushions	cushion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
10	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
15	knelt	kneel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
16	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sink down** | past | prince |  |  | a pile of cushions |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **kneel** | past | prince's wife and daughter |  |  |  |  | beside prince | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent beside he=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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/29/40/)
- next →: [sentence 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/29/42/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/29/)