---
title: The old woman did not need twice telling, but set off at once for th… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old woman did not need twice telling, but set off at once for the bridge. Who acts: old woman. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 18

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The old woman did not need twice telling, but set off at once for the bridge.

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**Who acts:** old woman · **What happens:** not need, tell, set off · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22. 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), 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:pg3282:22:18
# text = The old woman did not need twice telling, but set off at once for the bridge.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	need	need	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	twice	twice	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	8	advmod	_	_
8	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	off	off	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	11	obl	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	bridge	bridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **need** | past · do-support | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | gerund | the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  | twice *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **set off** | past | the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for the bridge | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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:** «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.

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