---
title: So the old man and the old woman went out and began to hoe potatoes,… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So the old man and the old woman went out and began to hoe potatoes, and left the little boy to tend the oven. Who acts: old man. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Lazy Jack, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Lazy Jack, sentence 37

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So the old man and the old woman went out and began to hoe potatoes, and left the little boy to tend the oven.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** go out, begin, hoe, leave, tend · **To what, where:** potatoes, little boy, oven

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Lazy Jack. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man), 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:pg7439:34:37
# text = So the old man and the old woman went out and began to hoe potatoes, and left the little boy to tend the oven.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
9	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	out	out	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	hoe	hoe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	potatoes	potato	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	tend	tend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	oven	oven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go out** | past | the old man and the old woman |  |  |  |  | out *property* | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the old man and the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **hoe** | to-infinitive | the old man and the old woman *not said here* | potatoes |  |  |  |  | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent potato=Theme |
| 4 | **leave** | past | the old man and the old woman *not said here* | the little boy |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Theme |
| 5 | **tend** | to-infinitive | the old man and the old woman *not said here* | the oven |  |  |  |  | vn caring-75.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent oven=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:** «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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