---
title: So he sat there full of grief and misery, eating every day only a ti… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So he sat there full of grief and misery, eating every day only a tiny bit of bread, and drinking only a mouthful of ovine, and he watched death creeping nearer and nearer to him. Who acts: provision, death. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Snake-leaves, with its depend
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/23/)

<!-- 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 Three Snake-leaves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/) / 23

# The Green Fairy Book, The Three Snake-leaves, sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So he sat there full of grief and misery, eating every day only a tiny bit of bread, and drinking only a mouthful of ovine, and he watched death creeping nearer and nearer to him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** provision, death · **What happens:** sit, eat, drink, watch, creep · **To what, where:** tiny bit, mouthful, death, provision

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Snake-leaves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (provision, death), 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:pg7277:46:23
# text = So he sat there full of grief and misery, eating every day only a tiny bit of bread, and drinking only a mouthful of ovine, and he watched death creeping nearer and nearer to him.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
5	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	grief	grief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	misery	misery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
12	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	13	det	_	_
13	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	only	only	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	drinking	drink	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
23	only	only	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	mouthful	mouthful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	ovine	ovine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
31	watched	watch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
32	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obj	_	_
33	creeping	creep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	31	xcomp	_	_
34	nearer	near	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	33	xcomp	_	_
35	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
36	nearer	near	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	34	conj	_	_
37	to	to	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
38	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | provision |  |  | there |  | full *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **eat** | gerund | provision *not said here* | a tiny bit of bread |  |  | day |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **drink** | gerund | provision *not said here* | a mouthful of ovine |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mouthful=Patient |
| 4 | **watch** | past | provision | death |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **creep** | gerund | death *not said here* |  | provision |  |  | near *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to he=Destination |

<!-- .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 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/22/)
- next →: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/24/)
- ↑ back to [The Three Snake-leaves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/)