---
title: “Let me alone, old witch,” cried the young man; “I can do nothing fo… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Let me alone, old witch,” cried the young man; “I can do nothing for you,” and so saying he went on his way. Who acts: you, woman, man. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, 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/pg503/2/37/)

<!-- 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 Bronze Ring](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/) / 37

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 37

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Let me alone, old witch,” cried the young man; “I can do nothing for you,” and so saying he went on his way.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, woman, man · **What happens:** let, cry, do, say, go · **To what, where:** me, young man, nothing, way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, woman, man), 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:pg503:2:37
# text = “Let me alone, old witch,” cried the young man; “I can do nothing for you,” and so saying he went on his way.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
10	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
19	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	18	obj	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	so	so	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	conj	_	_
27	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	ccomp	_	_
29	on	on	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** *in a quote* | imperative | you *not said here* | me |  |  |  | old witch *obl*; alone *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | you *not said here* | the young man |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | can | woman | nothing |  |  |  | for you | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **go** | past | man |  |  | man's way |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on way=Location |

<!-- .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 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/36/)
- next →: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/38/)
- ↑ back to [The Bronze Ring](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/)