---
title: But the gourd was empty; in the excitement of his joy he had forgott… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the gourd was empty; in the excitement of his joy he had forgotten to fill it. Who acts: gourd, adventurer. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Canary, sentence 103

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But the gourd was empty; in the excitement of his joy he had forgotten to fill it.

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**Who acts:** gourd, adventurer · **What happens:** be, forget, not fill, excite, joy · **To what, where:** excitement, joy, gourd

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gourd, adventurer), 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:pg540:40:103
# text = But the gourd was empty; in the excitement of his joy he had forgotten to fill it.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	gourd	gourd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	excitement	excitement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	joy	joy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	forgotten	forget	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	fill	fill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the gourd |  |  | the excitement of adventurer's joy |  | empty *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **forget** | past · perfect | adventurer | adventurer's joy *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **fill** | to-infinitive | adventurer *not said here* | gourd |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 4 | **excite** |  |  | adventurer's joy |  |  |  |  | nom excitement «feeling transitive»: of=patient |
| 5 | **joy** |  | adventurer |  |  |  |  |  | nom joy «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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