---
title: The good old woman, not knowing very well what to do in this affair,… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The good old woman, not knowing very well what to do in this affair, cried out for help. Who acts: good old 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.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, sentence 28

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The good old woman, not knowing very well what to do in this affair, cried out for help.

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**Who acts:** good old woman · **What happens:** not know, do, cry out · **To what, where:** affair

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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 (good 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:pg503:10:28
# text = The good old woman, not knowing very well what to do in this affair, cried out for help.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	det	_	_
15	affair	affair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
17	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	out	out	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	help	help	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | gerund | the good old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive | the good old woman *not said here* |  |  | this affair |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 3 | **cry out** *speech: express* | past | the good old woman |  |  |  |  | for help | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient S\_INF»: agent=Agent for help=Recipient |

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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 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.

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