---
title: When the man got home the old woman inquired what had become of the… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When the man got home the old woman inquired what had become of the son. Who acts: man, old woman. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Farmer Weatherbeard, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When the man got home the old woman inquired what had become of the son.

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**Who acts:** man, old woman · **What happens:** get, inquire, become · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, 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:pg540:43:17
# text = When the man got home the old woman inquired what had become of the son.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
5	home	home	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	become	become	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	ccomp	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | the man |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **become** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  | of the son | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=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 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.

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