---
title: He threw down the three little bits of bread and a hare came out and… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He threw down the three little bits of bread and a hare came out and ate them. Who acts: Farmer, hare. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Farmer Weatherbeard, sentence 74

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He threw down the three little bits of bread and a hare came out and ate them.

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**Who acts:** Farmer, hare · **What happens:** throw down, come out, eat · **To what, where:** three little bits, bits

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Farmer, hare), 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:pg540:43:74
# text = He threw down the three little bits of bread and a hare came out and ate them.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	down	down	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	bits	bit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	hare	hare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	out	out	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **throw down** | past | Farmer | the three little bits of bread |  |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bit=Theme |
| 2 | **come out** | past | a hare |  |  |  |  | out *property* | vn become-109.1 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **eat** | past | a hare *not said here* | bits *= bit* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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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