---
title: The pie only served to sharpen his appetite, and I heard him sharpen… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The pie only served to sharpen his appetite, and I heard him sharpening his knife and saying he must have a collop or two, for he was not near satisfied. Who acts: pie, I, giant. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., with its dependency tree and 
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., sentence 125

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The pie only served to sharpen his appetite, and I heard him sharpening his knife and saying he must have a collop or two, for he was not near satisfied.

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**Who acts:** pie, I, giant · **What happens:** serve, sharpen, hear, say, have, not be · **To what, where:** appetite, giant, knife, collop · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pie, I, giant), 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:pg540:8:125
# text = The pie only served to sharpen his appetite, and I heard him sharpening his knife and saying he must have a collop or two, for he was not near satisfied.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	pie	pie	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	served	serve	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	sharpen	sharpen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	appetite	appetite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	sharpening	sharpen	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	xcomp	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	saying	say	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	conj	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	collop	collop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
24	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
27	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	32	mark	_	_
28	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
29	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	32	cop	_	_
30	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	32	advmod	_	_
31	near	near	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
32	satisfied	satisfied	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **serve** | past | the pie |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sharpen** | to-infinitive | the pie *not said here* | giant's appetite |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent appetite=Patient |
| 3 | **hear** | past | I | giant |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **sharpen** | gerund | giant *not said here* | giant's knife |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent knife=Patient |
| 5 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | giant *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 6 | **have** | must | giant | a collop |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent collop=Patient |
| 7 | **not** **is** | past | giant |  |  |  |  | near, satisfied *property* | tree rules |

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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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