---
title: So he went in, and inside there was an old woman who was busy about… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So he went in, and inside there was an old woman who was busy about some work. Who acts: house, old woman. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 11

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So he went in, and inside there was an old woman who was busy about some work.

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**Who acts:** house, old woman · **What happens:** go in, be · **To what, where:** old woman

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (house, 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:pg540:9:11
# text = So he went in, and inside there was an old woman who was busy about some work.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	inside	inside	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	about	about	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	det	_	_
18	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go in** | past | house |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | a old woman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | a old woman |  |  |  |  | about some work; busy *property* | tree rules |

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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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