---
title: Suddenly the little old woman stood before him, and, tapping him on… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Suddenly the little old woman stood before him, and, tapping him on the shoulder, said, ‘So far good, my boy; but what do you mean to do now?’ Who acts: little old woman, you. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Swan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cl
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/10/)

<!-- 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 Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Magic Swan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/) / 10

# The Green Fairy Book, The Magic Swan, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Suddenly the little old woman stood before him, and, tapping him on the shoulder, said, ‘So far good, my boy; but what do you mean to do now?’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little old woman, you · **What happens:** stand, tap, say, mean, do · **To what, where:** Peter · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Swan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little old woman, you), 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:pg7277:23:10
# text = Suddenly the little old woman stood before him, and, tapping him on the shoulder, said, ‘So far good, my boy; but what do you mean to do now?’
1	Suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	before	before	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	tapping	tap	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	ccomp	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	shoulder	shoulder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
18	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	So	so	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
22	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	23	advmod	_	_
23	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
28	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
29	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	32	obj	_	_
30	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	32	aux	_	_
31	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
32	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
33	to	to	PART	TO	_	34	mark	_	_
34	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	xcomp	_	_
35	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	34	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | the little old woman |  |  |  | before Peter | suddenly *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=Location |
| 2 | **tap** | gerund |  | Peter |  |  |  | on the shoulder | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent he=Instrument on shoulder=Patient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the little old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **mean** | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  | now |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/9/)
- next →: [sentence 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/11/)
- ↑ back to [The Magic Swan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/)