---
title: At this wonderful news the old woman flew downstairs, almost tumblin… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At this wonderful news the old woman flew downstairs, almost tumbling down ill her eagerness to see the treasure; but when her husband led her to the pail it was perfectly empty! Who acts: old woman, husband, pail. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 98

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At this wonderful news the old woman flew downstairs, almost tumbling down ill her eagerness to see the treasure; but when her husband led her to the pail it was perfectly empty!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old woman, husband, pail · **What happens:** fly, tumble down, see, lead, be · **To what, where:** wonderful news, ill eagerness, treasure, woman, pail

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9. 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, husband, pail), 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:pg2435:9:98
# text = At this wonderful news the old woman flew downstairs, almost tumbling down ill her eagerness to see the treasure; but when her husband led her to the pail it was perfectly empty!
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
3	wonderful	wonderful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	downstairs	downstairs	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	tumbling	tumble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	_
13	down	down	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	eagerness	eagerness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	treasure	treasure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	26	advmod	_	_
24	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
26	led	lead	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
27	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	_
28	to	to	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	pail	pail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
31	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
32	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	34	cop	_	_
33	perfectly	perfectly	ADV	RB	_	34	advmod	_	_
34	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past | the old woman |  |  | this wonderful news |  | downstairs *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent at news=Location |
| 2 | **tumble down** | gerund | the old woman *not said here* | woman's ill eagerness |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location eagerness=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | to-infinitive | the old woman *not said here* | the treasure |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer treasure=Stimulus |
| 4 | **lead** | past | woman's husband | woman |  | the pail |  |  | vn accompany-51.7 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent she=Theme to pail=Destination |
| 5 | **is** | past | pail | the pail *not said here* |  |  |  | empty, perfectly *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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