---
title: And the woman was trying to get her cow to go up a ladder to the gra… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And the woman was trying to get her cow to go up a ladder to the grass, and the poor thing durst not go. Who acts: woman, cow, poor thing. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Sillies, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Three Sillies, sentence 26

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And the woman was trying to get her cow to go up a ladder to the grass, and the poor thing durst not go.

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**Who acts:** woman, cow, poor thing · **What happens:** try, get, go up, not go · **To what, where:** cow, ladder

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Sillies. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman, cow, poor thing), 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:pg7439:7:26
# text = And the woman was trying to get her cow to go up a ladder to the grass, and the poor thing durst not go.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	trying	try	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	ladder	ladder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
23	durst	durst	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past · progressive | the woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **get** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the woman *not said here* | woman's cow |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go up** | to-infinitive | woman's cow *not said here* | a ladder |  |  |  | to the grass | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 4 | **not** **go** | infinitive | the poor thing |  |  |  |  | durst *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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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