---
title: This gave them new life, for the poor people were almost famished. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: This gave them new life, for the poor people were almost famished. Who acts: This. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 27

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This gave them new life, for the poor people were almost famished.

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**Who acts:** This · **What happens:** give, famish · **To what, where:** new life, crowns, poor people

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This), 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:pg503:33:27
# text = This gave them new life, for the poor people were almost famished.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	nsubj	_	_
2	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
12	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	famished	famish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past | This | new life | crowns *= crown* |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient life=Theme |
| 2 | **famish** | past · passive |  | the poor people |  |  |  | almost *property* | tree rules |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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