---
title: So they all sat silent at their work, inwardly cursing the head whic… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So they all sat silent at their work, inwardly cursing the head which was the cause of their misfortunes. Who acts: veils, head. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg3282/21/138/)

<!-- 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 Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/21/) / 138

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 138

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So they all sat silent at their work, inwardly cursing the head which was the cause of their misfortunes.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** veils, head · **What happens:** sit, curse, be, work · **To what, where:** work, head, cause

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown 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 (veils, head), 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:pg3282:21:138
# text = So they all sat silent at their work, inwardly cursing the head which was the cause of their misfortunes.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	2	det	_	_
4	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	silent	silent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	inwardly	inwardly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
11	cursing	curse	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	csubj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	cause	cause	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	misfortunes	misfortune	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | veils *= veil* |  |  | veils's work |  | silent *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at work=Location |
| 2 | **curse** | gerund |  | the head and the cause |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | past | the head and the cause | the cause |  |  |  | of veils's misfortunes | tree rules |
| 4 | **work** |  | veils *= veil* |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: poss=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 137](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/21/137/)
- next →: [sentence 139](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/21/139/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/21/)