---
title: “But how did you cross the water?” inquired the old woman. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “But how did you cross the water?” inquired the old woman. Who acts: you, old woman. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/11/79/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/11/) / 79

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 11, sentence 79

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“But how did you cross the water?” inquired the old woman.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, old woman · **What happens:** cross, inquire · **To what, where:** water · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, 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.

<!-- .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:pg3282:11:79
# text = “But how did you cross the water?” inquired the old woman.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	cross	cross	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
11	inquired	inquire	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	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cross** *in a quote* | past · do-support | you | the water |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Patient |
| 2 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/11/78/)
- next →: [sentence 80](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/11/80/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/11/)