---
title: But she was an impudent, bad old Woman, and set about helping herself. — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But she was an impudent, bad old Woman, and set about helping herself. Who acts: Woman, impudent bad old Woman. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of the Three Bears, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Story of the Three Bears, sentence 12

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But she was an impudent, bad old Woman, and set about helping herself.

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**Who acts:** Woman, impudent bad old Woman · **What happens:** be, set, help · **To what, where:** impudent bad old Woman, Woman

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of the Three Bears. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Woman, impudent bad old 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:pg7439:21:12
# text = But she was an impudent, bad old Woman, and set about helping herself.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
5	impudent	impudent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	Woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	set	set	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl	_	_
13	about	about	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
14	helping	help	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
15	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Woman | a impudent bad old Woman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **set** | infinitive | a impudent bad old Woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **help** | gerund | a impudent bad old Woman *not said here* | Woman |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent herself=Beneficiary |

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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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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