---
title: But the old woman would listen to nothing; and at last the barber to… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the old woman would listen to nothing; and at last the barber took out his knife and struck the first blow at her neck. Who acts: old woman, last. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/18/61/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 18, sentence 61

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But the old woman would listen to nothing; and at last the barber took out his knife and struck the first blow at her neck.

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**Who acts:** old woman, last · **What happens:** listen, take out, strike · **To what, where:** knife, first blow, neck

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 18. 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, last), 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:pg5615:18:61
# text = But the old woman would listen to nothing; and at last the barber took out his knife and struck the first blow at her neck.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	nsubj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	barber	barber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
15	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	23	amod	_	_
23	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
24	at	at	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **listen** | would | the old woman |  |  |  |  | to nothing | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to nothing=Theme |
| 2 | **take out** | past | last | barber's knife |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knife=Theme |
| 3 | **strike** | past | last *not said here* | the first blow |  | woman's neck |  |  | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent blow=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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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