---
title: He had always little enough to live on, and once, when there was a g… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had always little enough to live on, and once, when there was a great famine in the land, he couldn’t even provide them with daily bread. Who acts: boy, great famine. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He had always little enough to live on, and once, when there was a great famine in the land, he couldn’t even provide them with daily bread.

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**Who acts:** boy, great famine · **What happens:** have, live on, be, not provide · **To what, where:** little, children

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, great famine), 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:pg503:35:2
# text = He had always little enough to live on, and once, when there was a great famine in the land, he couldn’t even provide them with daily bread.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	4	advmod	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	obj	_	_
5	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
11	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	27	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
14	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	15	expl	_	_
15	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	advcl	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	famine	famine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
23	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
24	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	27	advmod	_	_
26	even	even	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	provide	provide	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
28	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obj	_	_
29	with	with	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	daily	daily	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | boy | little |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent little=Patient |
| 2 | **live on** | to-infinitive | boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **be** | past | a great famine in the land |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **provide** | could | boy | children *= child* |  |  |  | with daily bread; once *property* | vn fulfilling-13.4.1-2 «NP V NP-Fulfilling PP.theme»: agent=Agent they=Recipient with bread=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.

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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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