---
title: So he set to work, and soon scraped out for himself a shallow grave… — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: So he set to work, and soon scraped out for himself a shallow grave in the soft soil. Who acts: fellow. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulman., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/8/)

<!-- 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/) / [Folk tales from Tibet](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/) / [The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulm…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/) / 8

# Folk tales from Tibet, The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulman., sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So he set to work, and soon scraped out for himself a shallow grave in the soft soil.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** fellow · **What happens:** set, work, scrape out · **To what, where:** shallow grave, soft soil

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulman.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fellow), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75000:7:8
# text = So he set to work, and soon scraped out for himself a shallow grave in the soft soil.
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	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	9	advmod	_	_
9	scraped	scrape	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	_
10	out	out	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	shallow	shallow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	grave	grave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set** | past | fellow |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **work** | to-infinitive | fellow *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **scrape out** | participle |  | a shallow grave |  | the soft soil |  | for fellow; soon *property* | vn funnel-9.3-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent grave=Theme in soil=Trajectory |

<!-- .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:** «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, Project Gutenberg book 75000 (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 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/9/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulman.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/)