---
title: At last he thought, ‘At a pinch I can eat a salad; it does not taste… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At last he thought, ‘At a pinch I can eat a salad; it does not taste particularly nice, but it will refresh me.’ Who acts: Hunter, I, salad. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1, sentence 68

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At last he thought, ‘At a pinch I can eat a salad; it does not taste particularly nice, but it will refresh me.’

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**Who acts:** Hunter, I, salad · **What happens:** think, eat, not taste, refresh · **To what, where:** last, salad, pinch, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hunter, I, salad), 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:pg640:10:68
# text = At last he thought, ‘At a pinch I can eat a salad; it does not taste particularly nice, but it will refresh me.’
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	At	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	pinch	pinch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	salad	salad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	taste	taste	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
20	particularly	particularly	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	refresh	refresh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	conj	_	_
27	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Hunter |  |  | last |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **eat** | can | I | a salad |  | a pinch |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent salad=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **taste** | present · do-support | salad |  |  |  |  | nice *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 4 | **refresh** | future | salad | me |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus i=Experiencer |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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