---
title: “I am spinning, my pretty child,” said the old woman, who did not kn… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I am spinning, my pretty child,” said the old woman, who did not know who she was. Who acts: old woman, woman. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/10/24/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/10/) / 24

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, sentence 24

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I am spinning, my pretty child,” said the old woman, who did not know who she was.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old woman, woman · **What happens:** spin, say, not know, be · **To what, where:** old woman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. 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, woman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:10:24
# text = “I am spinning, my pretty child,” said the old woman, who did not know who she was.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	spinning	spin	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
7	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
17	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
20	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	ccomp	_	_
21	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spin** *in a quote* | present · progressive | the old woman *= woman* |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is a** | past | woman | the old woman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/10/23/)
- next →: [sentence 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/10/25/)
- ↑ back to [The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/10/)