---
title: Old though she was, it seemed impossible to tire her. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Old though she was, it seemed impossible to tire her. Who acts: bade, it. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 5, sentence 27

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Old though she was, it seemed impossible to tire her.

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**Who acts:** bade, it · **What happens:** be, seem, tire · **To what, where:** bade

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bade, it), 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:pg3282:38:27
# text = Old though she was, it seemed impossible to tire her.
1	Old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	advcl	_	_
2	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	tire	tire	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | bade |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **seem** | past | it |  |  |  |  | impossible *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **tire** | to-infinitive |  | bade |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus she=Experiencer |

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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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