---
title: “Are you mad, old woman?” said the sultan, staring at her. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Are you mad, old woman?” said the sultan, staring at her. Who acts: you, sultan. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/22/35/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 35

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“Are you mad, old woman?” said the sultan, staring at her.

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**Who acts:** you, sultan · **What happens:** be, say, stare · **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 (you, sultan), 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:pg3282:22:35
# text = “Are you mad, old woman?” said the sultan, staring at her.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	mad	mad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	sultan	sultan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	staring	stare	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  | old woman *vocative*; mad *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the sultan |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **stare** | gerund | the sultan *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at woman | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at she=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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