---
title: They were all very poor, and at last things got so bad that they rea… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They were all very poor, and at last things got so bad that they really had not enough to eat. Who acts: Peppe. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 37, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 37, sentence 5

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They were all very poor, and at last things got so bad that they really had not enough to eat.

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**Who acts:** Peppe · **What happens:** be, get, eat · **To what, where:** last things

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 37. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Peppe), 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:pg5615:37:5
# text = They were all very poor, and at last things got so bad that they really had not enough to eat.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	all	all	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
11	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
16	really	really	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	enough	enough	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	advcl	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Peppe |  |  |  |  | all, poor *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **get** | past | Peppe *not said here* |  |  | last things |  | bad *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | Peppe *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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