---
title: ‘What can that be?’ said the old woman, as she peeped out of the door. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What can that be?’ said the old woman, as she peeped out of the door. Who acts: that, old woman, woman. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, 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/pg3454/24/1/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 1

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‘What can that be?’ said the old woman, as she peeped out of the door.

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**Who acts:** that, old woman, woman · **What happens:** be, say, peep out · **To what, where:** door · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that, old woman, 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:pg3454:24:1
# text = ‘What can that be?’ said the old woman, as she peeped out of the door.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
5	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	peeped	peep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **can** | can | that |  |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **peep out** | past | woman | the door |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent door=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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