---
title: ‘I am only a poor girl,’ she answered, ‘and am rinsing out my yarn i… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I am only a poor girl,’ she answered, ‘and am rinsing out my yarn in the river.’ Who acts: I, poor girl, my. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 1, 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/pg540/37/69/)

<!-- 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 Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Three Dwarfs, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/) / 69

# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Dwarfs, part 1, sentence 69

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I am only a poor girl,’ she answered, ‘and am rinsing out my yarn in the river.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, poor girl, my · **What happens:** be, answer, rinse out, yarn · **To what, where:** poor girl, ‘, yarn, river

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, poor girl, my), 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:pg540:37:69
# text = ‘I am only a poor girl,’ she answered, ‘and am rinsing out my yarn in the river.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	‘	‘	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	rinsing	rinse	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	conj	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	yarn	yarn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | I | a poor girl |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | a poor girl | ‘ |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent ‘=Eventuality |
| 3 | **rinse out** | present · progressive | a poor girl *not said here* | my yarn |  | the river |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent yarn=Source |
| 4 | **yarn** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom yarn «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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 68](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/68/)
- next →: [sentence 70](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/70/)
- ↑ back to [The Three Dwarfs, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/)