---
title: ‘Oh! robbers, and rabble of that sort,’ said the old woman; ‘they st… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh! robbers, and rabble of that sort,’ said the old woman; ‘they stole me away when I was little, and I have had to keep house for them ever since.’ Who acts: old woman, people, I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/19/)

<!-- 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 Master Thief](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/) / 19

# The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Oh! robbers, and rabble of that sort,’ said the old woman; ‘they stole me away when I was little, and I have had to keep house for them ever since.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old woman, people, I · **What happens:** say, steal away, be, have, keep · **To what, where:** me, house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (old woman, people, I), 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:pg540:9:19
# text = ‘Oh! robbers, and rabble of that sort,’ said the old woman; ‘they stole me away when I was little, and I have had to keep house for them ever since.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	rabble	rabble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	sort	sort	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
18	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	stole	steal	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
21	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	away	away	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
23	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	26	advmod	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
29	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
30	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
31	had	have	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	conj	_	_
32	to	to	PART	TO	_	33	mark	_	_
33	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	31	xcomp	_	_
34	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obj	_	_
35	for	for	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
36	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	obl	_	_
37	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	38	advmod	_	_
38	since	since	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **steal away** | past | people | me |  |  |  | away *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location i=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | I |  |  |  |  | little *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **have** | present · perfect | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **keep** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | house |  |  |  | for people; since *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent house=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.

<!-- 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 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/18/)
- next →: [sentence 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/20/)
- ↑ back to [The Master Thief](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/9/)