---
title: An old woman sat in an armchair near the fire, and as the strangers… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: An old woman sat in an armchair near the fire, and as the strangers entered she turned her red eyes on them. Who acts: old woman, strangers, woman. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Riddle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/47/10/)

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Riddle, sentence 10

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An old woman sat in an armchair near the fire, and as the strangers entered she turned her red eyes on them.

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**Who acts:** old woman, strangers, woman · **What happens:** sit, enter, turn · **To what, where:** armchair, red eyes

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Riddle. 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, strangers, 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:pg7277:47:10
# text = An old woman sat in an armchair near the fire, and as the strangers entered she turned her red eyes on them.
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	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	armchair	armchair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	near	near	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
13	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	strangers	stranger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
16	entered	enter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	turned	turn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
20	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
22	on	on	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | a old woman |  |  | a armchair |  | near the fire | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in armchair=Location |
| 2 | **enter** | past | the strangers |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **turn** | past | woman | woman's red eyes |  |  |  | on strangers *= stranger* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent eye=Theme |

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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 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.

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