---
title: The old woman saw she had spoken vainly, and went back weeping to th… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old woman saw she had spoken vainly, and went back weeping to the gazelle. Who acts: old woman, woman. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of a Gazelle, sentence 220

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The old woman saw she had spoken vainly, and went back weeping to the gazelle.

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**Who acts:** old woman, woman · **What happens:** see, speak, go back, weep · **To what, where:** gazelle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle. 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, 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:pg641:15:220
# text = The old woman saw she had spoken vainly, and went back weeping to the gazelle.
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	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	spoken	speak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	ccomp	_	_
8	vainly	vainly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	back	back	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	weeping	weep	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	gazelle	gazelle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | past · perfect | woman |  |  |  |  | vainly *property* | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **go back** | past | the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **weep** | gerund | the old woman *not said here* |  | the gazelle |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to gazelle=Recipient |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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