---
title: The old woman didn’t wait to be asked twice, but mounted behind him,… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old woman didn’t wait to be asked twice, but mounted behind him, and in this style they reached the chief city of a powerful kingdom. Who acts: old woman, legs. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 43

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The old woman didn’t wait to be asked twice, but mounted behind him, and in this style they reached the chief city of a powerful kingdom.

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**Who acts:** old woman, legs · **What happens:** not wait, ask, mount, reach · **To what, where:** chief city, style

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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 (old woman, legs), 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:pg503:2:43
# text = The old woman didn’t wait to be asked twice, but mounted behind him, and in this style they reached the chief city of a powerful kingdom.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	wait	wait	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	_
10	twice	twice	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	mounted	mount	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	conj	_	_
14	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	style	style	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	chief	chief	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	powerful	powerful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	kingdom	kingdom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **wait** | past · do-support | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive · passive | the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  | twice *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V» |
| 3 | **mount** | participle | the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  | behind traveler | vn put-9.1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent behind he=Destination |
| 4 | **reach** | past | legs *= leg* | the chief city of a powerful kingdom |  | this style |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent city=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 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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