---
title: One evening the old woman was astonished to find that her very best… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One evening the old woman was astonished to find that her very best nanny-goat returned without a drop of milk. Who acts: old woman. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, sentence 54

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One evening the old woman was astonished to find that her very best nanny-goat returned without a drop of milk.

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**Who acts:** old woman · **What happens:** be, find, return · **To what, where:** best nanny goat

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate. 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:pg3282:33:54
# text = One evening the old woman was astonished to find that her very best nanny-goat returned without a drop of milk.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	astonished	astonished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
12	very	very	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	16	amod	_	_
14	nanny	nanny	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	goat	goat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	ccomp	_	_
17	returned	return	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl	_	_
18	without	without	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	drop	drop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the old woman |  |  |  | evening | astonished *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **find** | to-infinitive | the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **return** | participle |  | widow's best nanny goat *not said here* |  |  |  | without a drop of milk | 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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