---
title: The goodwife was stirring the soup, and the goodman plaiting sprit-b… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The goodwife was stirring the soup, and the goodman plaiting sprit-binnings for the cows. " Who acts: goodwife, goodman. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 7, 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/pg14241/21/75/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 7, sentence 75

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The goodwife was stirring the soup, and the goodman plaiting sprit-binnings for the cows. "

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**Who acts:** goodwife, goodman · **What happens:** stir, plait · **To what, where:** soup, sprit binnings

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (goodwife, goodman), 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:pg14241:21:75
# text = The goodwife was stirring the soup, and the goodman plaiting sprit-binnings for the cows. "
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	goodwife	goodwife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	stirring	stir	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	soup	soup	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	goodman	goodman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	_
11	plaiting	plait	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	acl	_	_
12	sprit	sprit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	binnings	binning	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	cows	cow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stir** | past · progressive | the goodwife | the soup |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus soup=Experiencer |
| 2 | **plait** | gerund | the goodman *not said here* | sprit binnings |  |  |  | for the cows | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent binning=Patient |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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