---
title: When the King of the Peacocks wanted his dinner there was nothing in… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When the King of the Peacocks wanted his dinner there was nothing in the pot and nothing in the pantry. Who acts: King, nothing. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Princess Rosette, sentence 235

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When the King of the Peacocks wanted his dinner there was nothing in the pot and nothing in the pantry.

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**Who acts:** King, nothing · **What happens:** want, be · **To what, where:** dinner

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, nothing), 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:pg540:11:235
# text = When the King of the Peacocks wanted his dinner there was nothing in the pot and nothing in the pantry.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	Peacocks	Peacock	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	_
7	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	_
11	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
12	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	nsubj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	15	conj	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	pantry	pantry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** | past | the King of the Peacocks | Frisk's dinner |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot dinner=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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