---
title: There was not a morsel in his hand to eat; nor a drop of water to dr… — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was not a morsel in his hand to eat; nor a drop of water to drink. Who acts: morsel. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 8, sentence 18

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There was not a morsel in his hand to eat; nor a drop of water to drink.

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**Who acts:** morsel · **What happens:** not be, eat, drink · **To what, where:** drop

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (morsel), 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:pg7128:14:18
# text = There was not a morsel in his hand to eat; nor a drop of water to drink.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	morsel	morsel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	14	cc	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	drop	drop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **be** | past | a morsel in morsel's hand | a drop of water |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **eat** | to-infinitive | a morsel in morsel's hand *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **drink** | to-infinitive | a morsel in morsel's hand *not said here* | a drop of water *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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:** «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7128 (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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