---
title: 'There seems nothing in the world you can do,' said the old woman, a… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'There seems nothing in the world you can do,' said the old woman, and left her to herself. Who acts: you, old woman. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 11, sentence 51

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'There seems nothing in the world you can do,' said the old woman, and left her to herself.

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**Who acts:** you, old woman · **What happens:** seem, do, say, leave · **To what, where:** nothing, world, woman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, old 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:pg3027:11:51
# text = 'There seems nothing in the world you can do,' said the old woman, and left her to herself.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	seems	seem	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
20	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | present |  | nothing |  | the world; there |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme nothing=Attribute |
| 2 | **do** | can | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **leave** | past | the old woman *not said here* | woman | woman |  |  |  | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Theme to herself=Recipient |

<!-- .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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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