---
title: "How's my old woman getting on?" asked the old man. — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "How's my old woman getting on?" asked the old man. Who acts: old woman, old man. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Ghost Stories., part 1, sentence 54

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"How's my old woman getting on?" asked the old man.

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**Who acts:** old woman, old man · **What happens:** get on, ask · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., part 1. 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, old man), 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:pg22373:51:54
# text = "How's my old woman getting on?" asked the old man.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	getting	get	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get on** *in a quote* | present · progressive | my old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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