---
title: At last he dreamed of nothing else, and grew thinner day by day till… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At last he dreamed of nothing else, and grew thinner day by day till his parents inquired what was the matter, promising to do all they could to make him as happy as he once was. Who acts: son, parents. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dirty Shepherdess, with its dependency t
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/24/27/)

<!-- 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 Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Dirty Shepherdess](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/24/) / 27

# The Green Fairy Book, The Dirty Shepherdess, sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At last he dreamed of nothing else, and grew thinner day by day till his parents inquired what was the matter, promising to do all they could to make him as happy as he once was.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** son, parents · **What happens:** dream, grow, inquire, be, promise, do · **To what, where:** last, matter, son · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dirty Shepherdess. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son, parents), 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:pg7277:24:27
# text = At last he dreamed of nothing else, and grew thinner day by day till his parents inquired what was the matter, promising to do all they could to make him as happy as he once was.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	dreamed	dream	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obl	_	_
7	else	else	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	thinner	thin	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	amod	_	_
12	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl:unmarked	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
15	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	22	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	promising	promise	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	advcl	_	_
25	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
26	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	xcomp	_	_
27	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	29	det	_	_
28	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
29	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	advcl	_	_
30	to	to	PART	TO	_	31	mark	_	_
31	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	29	advcl	_	_
32	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	obj	_	_
33	as	as	ADV	RB	_	34	advmod	_	_
34	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	xcomp	_	_
35	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	38	mark	_	_
36	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	38	nsubj	_	_
37	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	38	advmod	_	_
38	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	34	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dream** | past | son |  |  | last |  | of nothing | vn cognize-85 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **grow** | past | son *not said here* |  |  |  | day |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | son's parents |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | past |  | the matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **promise** *speech: promise* | gerund | son's parents *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 6 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | son's parents *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **make** | to-infinitive | son's parents *not said here* | son |  |  |  | happy *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset he=Product |
| 8 | **be** | past | son |  |  |  |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/24/26/)
- next →: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/24/28/)
- ↑ back to [The Dirty Shepherdess](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/24/)