---
title: There was once a woman who wanted to have quite a tiny, little child… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a woman who wanted to have quite a tiny, little child, but she did not know where to get one from. Who acts: woman. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/68/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/) / 68

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), sentence 68

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was once a woman who wanted to have quite a tiny, little child, but she did not know where to get one from.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** be, want, have, not know, get · **To what, where:** tiny little child, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman), 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:pg640:47:68
# text = There was once a woman who wanted to have quite a tiny, little child, but she did not know where to get one from.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	quite	quite	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	15	det:predet	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
12	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
21	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
22	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	24	advmod	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	ccomp	_	_
25	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	24	obj	_	_
26	from	from	ADP	IN	_	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a woman |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **want** | past | a woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **have** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a woman *not said here* | quite tiny little child |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |
| 4 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 5 | **get** | to-infinitive |  | one |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer one=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 67](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/67/)
- next →: [sentence 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/69/)
- ↑ back to [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/)