---
title: This old woman was a witch and she could do anything she liked. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: This old woman was a witch and she could do anything she liked. Who acts: old woman, woman. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, The People Who Became Serpents., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, The People Who Became Serpents., sentence 6

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This old woman was a witch and she could do anything she liked.

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**Who acts:** old woman, woman · **What happens:** be, do, like · **To what, where:** witch, anything

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, The People Who Became Serpents.. 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, woman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg76755:27:6
# text = This old woman was a witch and she could do anything she liked.
1	This	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
11	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	10	obj	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	liked	like	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | this old woman | a witch |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | could | woman | anything |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Eventuality |
| 3 | **like** | past | woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |

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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:** «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Project Gutenberg book 76755 (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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