---
title: Hardly able to breathe from excitement, he sat down and hunted eager… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Hardly able to breathe from excitement, he sat down and hunted eagerly through the plant which he had torn up. Who acts: sky. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25, 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/pg3454/25/88/)

<!-- 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 Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/) / 88

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 88

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Hardly able to breathe from excitement, he sat down and hunted eagerly through the plant which he had torn up.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sky · **What happens:** breathe, sit down, hunt, tear up · **To what, where:** excitement, plant

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sky), 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:pg3454:25:88
# text = Hardly able to breathe from excitement, he sat down and hunted eagerly through the plant which he had torn up.
1	Hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	breathe	breathe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	excitement	excitement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
10	down	down	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	hunted	hunt	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
13	eagerly	eagerly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	through	through	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	plant	plant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl:relcl	_	_
21	up	up	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **breathe** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | excitement |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sit down** | past | sky |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hunt** | past | sky *not said here* |  |  | the plant |  | eagerly *property* | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent through plant=Location |
| 4 | **tear up** | past · perfect · passive |  | the plant |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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 87](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/87/)
- next →: [sentence 89](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/89/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/)