---
title: Their occupation consisted in helping those in misfortune, and they… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Their occupation consisted in helping those in misfortune, and they were as gentle and benevolent as Lagree had been cruel and spiteful. Who acts: mind, occupation. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/24/12/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Glass Mountain(16), part 3, sentence 12

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Their occupation consisted in helping those in misfortune, and they were as gentle and benevolent as Lagree had been cruel and spiteful.

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**Who acts:** mind, occupation · **What happens:** consist, help, be, occupy · **To what, where:** occupation, those, misfortune

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mind, occupation), 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:pg640:24:12
# text = Their occupation consisted in helping those in misfortune, and they were as gentle and benevolent as Lagree had been cruel and spiteful.
1	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	occupation	occupation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
3	consisted	consist	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
5	helping	help	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
6	those	that	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	5	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	misfortune	misfortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	benevolent	benevolent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	Lagree	Lagree	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
19	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	cop	_	_
21	cruel	cruel	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	spiteful	spiteful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **consist** | participle |  | mind's occupation *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **help** | gerund |  | those |  | misfortune |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **is** | past | mind |  |  |  |  | gentle *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | mind *not said here* |  |  |  |  | as Lagree | tree rules |
| 5 | **is** | past · perfect | mind's occupation |  |  |  |  | cruel *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **be** |  | mind's occupation *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **occupy** |  | mind |  |  |  |  |  | nom occupation «act transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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