---
title: They were very hungry, too, for they had nothing to eat but a few be… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They were very hungry, too, for they had nothing to eat but a few berries they found growing on the ground. Who acts: Hansel, few berries. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 66

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They were very hungry, too, for they had nothing to eat but a few berries they found growing on the ground.

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**Who acts:** Hansel, few berries · **What happens:** be, have, eat, find, grow · **To what, where:** nothing, few berries, ground

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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 (Hansel, few berries), 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:pg503:35:66
# text = They were very hungry, too, for they had nothing to eat but a few berries they found growing on the ground.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	too	too	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	obj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	berries	berry	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	conj	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	_
20	growing	grow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	xcomp	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Hansel |  |  |  |  | hungry *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | Hansel | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | Hansel *not said here* | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **find** | past | Hansel | a few berries *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent berry=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 5 | **grow** | gerund | a few berries *not said here* |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on ground=Location |

<!-- .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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