---
title: As he was too young, and she was too old, to work, they were very po… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As he was too young, and she was too old, to work, they were very poor, and often did not have enough to eat. Who acts: Hare, snow, ice. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 11, 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/pg3282/11/42/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 11, sentence 42

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As he was too young, and she was too old, to work, they were very poor, and often did not have enough to eat.

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**Who acts:** Hare, snow, ice · **What happens:** be, work, not have, eat · **To what, where:** enough

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hare, snow, ice), 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:pg3282:11:42
# text = As he was too young, and she was too old, to work, they were very poor, and often did not have enough to eat.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	too	too	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	too	too	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	work	work	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	very	very	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
22	often	often	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
23	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	conj	_	_
26	enough	enough	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	obj	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Hare |  |  |  |  | young *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | snow |  |  |  |  | old *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **work** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | ice |  |  |  |  | poor *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **not** **have** | past · do-support | ice *not said here* | enough |  |  |  | often *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent enough=Patient |
| 6 | **eat** | to-infinitive | ice *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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