---
title: The cousin had three daughters, who laid out a tempting supper, but… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The cousin had three daughters, who laid out a tempting supper, but the man would eat nothing, and said to his cousin, ‘Your supper is bad.’ Who acts: cousin, three daughters, man, supper. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Two in a Sack, with its dependency tree and the pragmatic
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Two in a Sack, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The cousin had three daughters, who laid out a tempting supper, but the man would eat nothing, and said to his cousin, ‘Your supper is bad.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cousin, three daughters, man, supper · **What happens:** have, lay out, eat, say, be · **To what, where:** three daughters, tempting supper, nothing, cousin · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Two in a Sack. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cousin, three daughters, man, supper), 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:pg641:17:19
# text = The cousin had three daughters, who laid out a tempting supper, but the man would eat nothing, and said to his cousin, ‘Your supper is bad.’
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	cousin	cousin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	out	out	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	tempting	tempting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	supper	supper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
17	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
19	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	cousin	cousin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
27	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	31	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	Your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	supper	supper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nsubj	_	_
30	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	31	cop	_	_
31	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the cousin | three daughters |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=Patient |
| 2 | **lay out** | past | three daughters | a tempting supper |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent supper=Result |
| 3 | **eat** | would | the man | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | man's cousin |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to cousin=Recipient |
| 5 | **is** | present | Your supper |  |  |  |  | bad *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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