---
title: Now ever since Ball-Carrier’s death the family had been very poor, a… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Now ever since Ball-Carrier’s death the family had been very poor, and often could not get enough to eat. Who acts: family, Ball Carrier. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 3

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Now ever since Ball-Carrier’s death the family had been very poor, and often could not get enough to eat.

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**Who acts:** family, Ball Carrier · **What happens:** be, not get, eat, die · **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 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (family, Ball Carrier), 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:pg3282:8:3
# text = Now ever since Ball-Carrier’s death the family had been very poor, and often could not get enough to eat.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	_
2	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	1	fixed	_	_
3	since	since	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
4	Ball	Ball	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	Carrier	Carrier	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	family	family	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	cop	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	often	often	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
21	enough	enough	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	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 · perfect | the family |  |  |  | since Ball Carrier's death; now | poor *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **get** | could | the family *not said here* | enough |  |  |  | often *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer enough=Stimulus |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | the family *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **die** |  | Ball Carrier |  |  |  |  |  | nom death «event intransitive»: poss=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 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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