---
title: The poor child sat down to her task with her eyes so full of tears t… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor child sat down to her task with her eyes so full of tears that she could hardly see to begin. Who acts: poor child, HELENA, tears. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/28/114/)

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 3, sentence 114

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The poor child sat down to her task with her eyes so full of tears that she could hardly see to begin.

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**Who acts:** poor child, HELENA, tears · **What happens:** sit down, see, begin, task · **To what, where:** tears

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor child, HELENA, tears), 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:pg7277:28:114
# text = The poor child sat down to her task with her eyes so full of tears that she could hardly see to begin.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	down	down	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	tears	tear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	obj	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl:relcl	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	begin	begin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | the poor child |  |  |  |  | to HELENA's task; with HELENA's eyes; down *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **see** | could | HELENA | tears |  |  |  | hardly *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **begin** | to-infinitive | tears *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **task** |  | HELENA |  |  |  |  |  | nom task «act transitive»: poss=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:** «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.

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