---
title: As he sat there and took his bite, a man came riding past him. — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As he sat there and took his bite, a man came riding past him. Who acts: way, man. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 80

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As he sat there and took his bite, a man came riding past him.

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**Who acts:** way, man · **What happens:** sit, take, come, ride, bite · **To what, where:** bite

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (way, man), 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:pg5615:13:80
# text = As he sat there and took his bite, a man came riding past him.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	bite	bite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	riding	ride	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
14	past	past	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | way |  |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **take** | past | way *not said here* | way's bite |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bite=Theme |
| 3 | **come** | past | a man |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **ride** | gerund | a man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | past way | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent past he=Trajectory |
| 5 | **bite** |  | way |  |  |  |  |  | nom bite «state 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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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