---
title: He asked the old woman what was causing all the noise and light in t… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He asked the old woman what was causing all the noise and light in the town. Who acts: Irishman. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Blue Mountains, sentence 151

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He asked the old woman what was causing all the noise and light in the town.

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**Who acts:** Irishman · **What happens:** ask, cause · **To what, where:** old woman, noise, town · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Irishman), 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:pg640:45:151
# text = He asked the old woman what was causing all the noise and light in the town.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	causing	cause	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	ccomp	_	_
9	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	11	det:predet	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	noise	noise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Irishman |  | the old woman |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent woman=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **cause** | past · progressive |  | all noise and light |  | the town |  |  | vn engender-27.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition noise=Patient |

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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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