---
title: The old woman thought that the task set before was beyond his powers… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old woman thought that the task set before was beyond his powers, and that no more would be heard about the sultan’s daughter. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/22/49/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 49

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The old woman thought that the task set before was beyond his powers, and that no more would be heard about the sultan’s daughter.

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**Who acts:** old woman · **What happens:** think, be, hear

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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:pg3282:22:49
# text = The old woman thought that the task set before was beyond his powers, and that no more would be heard about the sultan’s daughter.
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	4	nsubj	_	_
4	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	set	set	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	_
9	before	before	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	beyond	beyond	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	powers	power	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	18	det	_	_
18	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	21	advmod	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
22	about	about	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	sultan	sultan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’s	's	PART	POS	_	24	case	_	_
26	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  | before sultan's powers |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **hear** | would · passive | the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about the sultan's daughter | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: about daughter=Stimulus |

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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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