---
title: An old woman passed by, and asked them why they were so sad. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: An old woman passed by, and asked them why they were so sad. Who acts: old woman, carriages. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon and His Grandmother, sentence 28

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An old woman passed by, and asked them why they were so sad.

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**Who acts:** old woman, carriages · **What happens:** pass by, ask, be · **To what, where:** carriages

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old woman, carriages), 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:pg640:9:28
# text = An old woman passed by, and asked them why they were so sad.
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass by** | participle | a old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | a old woman *not said here* |  | carriages *= carriage* |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent they=Recipient |
| 3 | **is** | past | carriages *= carriage* |  |  |  |  | sad *property* | 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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