---
title: In her despair the young wife called on the old witch to help her, a… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In her despair the young wife called on the old witch to help her, and in a moment the hunter was turned into a frog and his wife into a toad. Who acts: couple. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 3, with its dependency tree and th
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/21/31/)

<!-- 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 Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/21/) / 31

# The Yellow Fairy Book, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 3, sentence 31

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In her despair the young wife called on the old witch to help her, and in a moment the hunter was turned into a frog and his wife into a toad.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** couple · **What happens:** call, help, turn, despair · **To what, where:** young wife, couple, hunter · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (couple), 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:pg640:21:31
# text = In her despair the young wife called on the old witch to help her, and in a moment the hunter was turned into a frog and his wife into a toad.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	_
7	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl	_	_
14	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	hunter	hunter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux:pass	_	_
23	turned	turn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
24	into	into	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	frog	frog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
28	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	conj	_	_
30	into	into	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** | participle |  | the young wife *not said here* |  |  |  | on the old witch | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **help** | to-infinitive |  |  | couple |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **turn** | past · passive |  | the hunter |  |  | moment | into a frog and hunter's wife *result*; into a toad | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.result»: subject=Theme into frog=Result |
| 4 | **despair** |  | couple |  |  |  |  |  | nom despair «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/21/30/)
- next →: [sentence 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/21/32/)
- ↑ back to [How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/21/)