---
title: To his astonishment he found an old woman, who begged him to help he… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: To his astonishment he found an old woman, who begged him to help her out of the ditch. Who acts: Prince, old woman. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23), sentence 6

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To his astonishment he found an old woman, who begged him to help her out of the ditch.

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**Who acts:** Prince, old woman · **What happens:** find, beg, help, astonish · **To what, where:** old woman, Prince, woman, ditch

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince, 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:pg640:34:6
# text = To his astonishment he found an old woman, who begged him to help her out of the ditch.
1	To	to	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	astonishment	astonishment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
15	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	ditch	ditch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | past | Prince | a old woman |  |  |  | to Prince's astonishment | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent woman=Topic |
| 2 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | a old woman |  | Prince |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **help** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a old woman *not said here* |  | woman | the ditch |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Beneficiary |
| 4 | **astonish** |  | Prince |  |  |  |  |  | nom astonishment «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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