---
title: Now the youngest son was sitting in the kitchen, as was his custom,… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Now the youngest son was sitting in the kitchen, as was his custom, when he heard his father say those words. Who acts: youngest son, sultan, father. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/76/)

<!-- 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 Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Nunda, Eater of People](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/) / 76

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 76

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Now the youngest son was sitting in the kitchen, as was his custom, when he heard his father say those words.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** youngest son, sultan, father · **What happens:** sit, be, hear, say · **To what, where:** kitchen, words · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youngest son, sultan, father), 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:pg641:29:76
# text = Now the youngest son was sitting in the kitchen, as was his custom, when he heard his father say those words.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	4	amod	_	_
4	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	kitchen	kitchen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	custom	custom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
19	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
22	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	23	det	_	_
23	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | the youngest son |  |  | the kitchen | now |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in kitchen=Location |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | as sultan's custom | tree rules |
| 3 | **hear** | past | sultan |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | infinitive | sultan's father | that words |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 75](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/75/)
- next →: [sentence 77](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/77/)
- ↑ back to [The Nunda, Eater of People](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/)