---
title: He said to himself that he would certainly die if he stayed in the f… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He said to himself that he would certainly die if he stayed in the forest without anything to eat but the roots of grass, which would not keep him alive very long. Who acts: Irishman, roots. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains, with its dependency tree and the pr
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/5/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Blue Mountains](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/) / 5

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Blue Mountains, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He said to himself that he would certainly die if he stayed in the forest without anything to eat but the roots of grass, which would not keep him alive very long.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Irishman, roots · **What happens:** say, die, stay, eat, not keep · **To what, where:** Irishman, forest, roots · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Irishman, roots), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:45:5
# text = He said to himself that he would certainly die if he stayed in the forest without anything to eat but the roots of grass, which would not keep him alive very long.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	2	obl	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	stayed	stay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	without	without	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	obl	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	acl	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	roots	root	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
26	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	29	nsubj	_	_
27	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
28	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	_
29	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	parataxis	_	_
30	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obj	_	_
31	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	xcomp	_	_
32	very	very	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
33	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Irishman |  | Irishman |  |  |  | vn indicate-78-1 «NP V PP.recipient that S»: agent=Pivot to himself=Experiencer clause=Topic |
| 2 | **die** | would | Irishman |  |  |  |  | certainly *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **stay** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | Irishman |  |  | the forest |  | without anything | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in forest=Location |
| 4 | **eat** | to-infinitive | Irishman *not said here* | the roots of grass |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent root=Patient |
| 5 | **not** **keep** | would | the roots of grass | Irishman |  |  |  | alive, long *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/4/)
- next →: [sentence 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/6/)
- ↑ back to [The Blue Mountains](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/)