---
title: There was once an old woman who was a terrible witch, and she had a… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once an old woman who was a terrible witch, and she had a daughter and a granddaughter. Who acts: old woman, woman. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 3, sentence 21

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There was once an old woman who was a terrible witch, and she had a daughter and a granddaughter.

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**Who acts:** old woman, woman · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** terrible witch, daughter

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, 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 (old woman, woman), 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:pg22373:13:21
# text = There was once an old woman who was a terrible witch, and she had a daughter and a granddaughter.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	granddaughter	granddaughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a old woman |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | a old woman | a terrible witch |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | woman | a daughter and a granddaughter |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=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:** «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Project Gutenberg book 22373 (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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