---
title: They knocked at the door, and a good woman came and opened it; she a… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They knocked at the door, and a good woman came and opened it; she asked them what they would have. Who acts: brothers, good woman, woman. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 60

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They knocked at the door, and a good woman came and opened it; she asked them what they would have.

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**Who acts:** brothers, good woman, woman · **What happens:** knock, come, open, ask, have · **To what, where:** door, brothers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, good 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:pg503:33:60
# text = They knocked at the door, and a good woman came and opened it; she asked them what they would have.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	knocked	knock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	22	obj	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **knock** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  | at the door | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent at door=Patient |
| 2 | **come** | past | a good woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **open** | past | a good woman *not said here* | door |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location it=Theme |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | woman |  | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 5 | **have** | would | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Patient |

<!-- .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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