---
title: This was the cloister of the nuns, and the old woman was the Abbess. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: This was the cloister of the nuns, and the old woman was the Abbess. Who acts: This, old woman. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 4, sentence 3

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This was the cloister of the nuns, and the old woman was the Abbess.

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**Who acts:** This, old woman · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** cloister, Abbess

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, 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:pg640:13:3
# text = This was the cloister of the nuns, and the old woman was the Abbess.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	cloister	cloister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	nuns	nun	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Abbess	Abbess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | This | the cloister |  |  |  | of the nuns | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the old woman | the Abbess |  |  |  |  | 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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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