---
title: A poor man and his wife lived in a little cottage, where they suppor… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A poor man and his wife lived in a little cottage, where they supported themselves by catching fish in the nearest river, and got on as best they could, living from hand to mouth. Who acts: poor man, man. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Lads, with its dependency tree 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/49/1/)

<!-- 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 Golden Lads](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/49/) / 1

# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Lads, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A poor man and his wife lived in a little cottage, where they supported themselves by catching fish in the nearest river, and got on as best they could, living from hand to mouth.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** poor man, man · **What happens:** live, support, catch, get on · **To what, where:** little cottage, man, fish, nearest river, hand

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Lads. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor man, man), 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:pg7277:49:1
# text = A poor man and his wife lived in a little cottage, where they supported themselves by catching fish in the nearest river, and got on as best they could, living from hand to mouth.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
7	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	cottage	cottage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	15	advmod	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	supported	support	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
16	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	15	obj	_	_
17	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
18	catching	catch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
19	fish	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	nearest	near	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	23	amod	_	_
23	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
27	on	on	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
28	as	as	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	31	nsubj	_	_
30	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
31	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
33	living	live	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	26	advcl	_	_
34	from	from	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
35	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obl	_	_
36	to	to	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
37	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past | a poor man and his wife |  |  | a little cottage |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in cottage=Location |
| 2 | **support** | past | man | man |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer themselves=Stimulus |
| 3 | **catch** | gerund | man *not said here* | fish |  | the nearest river |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fish=Theme |
| 4 | **get on** | past | a poor man and his wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **live** | gerund | a poor man and his wife *not said here* |  |  | hand |  | to mouth | vn exist-47.1-1 «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: [Jack My Hedgehog, 75](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/48/75/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/49/2/)
- ↑ back to [The Golden Lads](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/49/)