---
title: “What am I to do?” she asked, when, after clapping her hands, the ol… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What am I to do?” she asked, when, after clapping her hands, the old woman appeared before her. Who acts: Thakane, old woman. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, 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/pg3282/16/48/)

<!-- 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 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/) / 48

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What am I to do?” she asked, when, after clapping her hands, the old woman appeared before her.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Thakane, old woman · **What happens:** do, ask, clap, appear · **To what, where:** hands · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Thakane, 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:pg3282:16:48
# text = “What am I to do?” she asked, when, after clapping her hands, the old woman appeared before her.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	clapping	clap	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	ccomp	_	_
16	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
22	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
23	before	before	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *not said to happen, in a quote* | present | Thakane |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Thakane |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **clap** | gerund |  | Thakane's hands |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location hand=Theme |
| 4 | **appear** | past | the old woman |  |  |  | before Thakane |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before she=Location |

<!-- .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 47](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/47/)
- next →: [sentence 49](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/49/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/)