---
title: He tried to eat his supper, but could not; he went to bed shaking wi… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He tried to eat his supper, but could not; he went to bed shaking with fever. Who acts: Count. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Nettle Spinner, sentence 67

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He tried to eat his supper, but could not; he went to bed shaking with fever.

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**Who acts:** Count · **What happens:** try, eat, go, shake · **To what, where:** supper, bed

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Count), 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:pg540:42:67
# text = He tried to eat his supper, but could not; he went to bed shaking with fever.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	supper	supper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
16	shaking	shake	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	fever	fever	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | Count |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **eat** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Count *not said here* | Count's supper |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent supper=Patient |
| 3 | **go** | past | Count |  |  | bed |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to bed=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **shake** | gerund | Count *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with fever | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent with fever=Co-Patient |

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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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