---
title: The old woman said, ‘If you would help yourselves, one of you must g… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old woman said, ‘If you would help yourselves, one of you must go into the wood, and there he will come upon a tumble-down building of rocks which looks like a little house. Who acts: old woman, you, One, tumble building. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His G
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/34/)

<!-- 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 Dragon and His Grandmother](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/) / 34

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon and His Grandmother, sentence 34

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The old woman said, ‘If you would help yourselves, one of you must go into the wood, and there he will come upon a tumble-down building of rocks which looks like a little house.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old woman, you, One, tumble building · **What happens:** say, help, go, come, look · **To what, where:** yourselves, wood, tumble building · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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, you, One, tumble building), 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:pg640:9:34
# text = The old woman said, ‘If you would help yourselves, one of you must go into the wood, and there he will come upon a tumble-down building of rocks which looks like a little house.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
11	yourselves	yourselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	obl	_	_
14	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl	_	_
18	into	into	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	26	expl	_	_
24	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
27	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
29	tumble	tumble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	31	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	down	down	ADP	RP	_	29	compound:prt	_	_
32	building	building	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	rocks	rock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nmod	_	_
35	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	36	nsubj	_	_
36	looks	look	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	32	acl:relcl	_	_
37	like	like	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
38	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	40	det	_	_
39	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	40	amod	_	_
40	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **help** *a condition, not said to happen* | would | you | yourselves |  |  |  | one *obl* | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent yourselves=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **go** | must | you |  |  | the wood |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into wood=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **come** | future | One |  |  | a tumble building of rocks; there |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon building=Location |
| 5 | **look** | present | a tumble building of rocks |  |  |  |  | like a little house | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=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 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/33/)
- next →: [sentence 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/35/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon and His Grandmother](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/)