---
title: They only just managed to live from hand to mouth, and had great dif… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They only just managed to live from hand to mouth, and had great difficulty in doing even so much as that, but they had three sons, and the youngest of them was called Cinderlad, for he did nothing else but lie and poke about among the ashes. Who acts: folks, great difficulty, Cinderlad. A sentence 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/2/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Seven Foals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/) / 2

# The Red Fairy Book, The Seven Foals, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They only just managed to live from hand to mouth, and had great difficulty in doing even so much as that, but they had three sons, and the youngest of them was called Cinderlad, for he did nothing else but lie and poke about among the ashes.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** folks, great difficulty, Cinderlad · **What happens:** manage, live, have, do, call, lie · **To what, where:** hand, great difficulty, much, three sons, youngest, nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (folks, great difficulty, Cinderlad), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:49:2
# text = They only just managed to live from hand to mouth, and had great difficulty in doing even so much as that, but they had three sons, and the youngest of them was called Cinderlad, for he did nothing else but lie and poke about among the ashes.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	just	just	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	managed	manage	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	difficulty	difficulty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	doing	do	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
18	even	even	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	obj	_	_
21	as	as	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
27	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	28	nummod	_	_
28	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	36	nsubj:pass	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nmod	_	_
35	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	36	aux:pass	_	_
36	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	_
37	Cinderlad	Cinderlad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	36	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	41	punct	_	_
39	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	41	mark	_	_
40	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	41	nsubj	_	_
41	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
42	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	41	obj	_	_
43	else	else	ADV	RB	_	42	advmod	_	_
44	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	45	cc	_	_
45	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	41	conj	_	_
46	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	47	cc	_	_
47	poke	poke	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	45	conj	_	_
48	about	about	ADV	RB	_	47	advmod	_	_
49	among	among	ADP	IN	_	51	case	_	_
50	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	51	det	_	_
51	ashes	ash	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	47	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
52	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **manage** | past | folks *= folk* |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **live** | to-infinitive | folks *= folk* *not said here* |  |  | hand |  | to mouth | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **have** | past | folks *= folk* *not said here* | great difficulty |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent difficulty=Patient |
| 4 | **do** | gerund | great difficulty *not said here* | much |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent much=Eventuality |
| 5 | **have** | past | folks *= folk* | three sons |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |
| 6 | **call** | past · passive |  | the youngest of folks |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 7 | **do** | past | Cinderlad | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |
| 8 | **lie** | infinitive | Cinderlad *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 9 | **poke about** | infinitive | Cinderlad *not said here* |  |  | the ashes |  | about *property* | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent among ash=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/3/)
- ↑ back to [The Seven Foals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/)