---
title: The big toad addressed him, asking him what he wanted. — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: The big toad addressed him, asking him what he wanted. Who acts: big toad, toad. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Dummling and the Three Feathers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, Dummling and the Three Feathers, sentence 12

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The big toad addressed him, asking him what he wanted.

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**Who acts:** big toad, toad · **What happens:** address, ask, want · **To what, where:** Dummling

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Dummling and the Three Feathers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (big toad, toad), 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:pg11027:10:12
# text = The big toad addressed him, asking him what he wanted.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	addressed	address	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	obj	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **address** | past | the big toad |  | Dummling |  |  |  | vn illustrate-25.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Destination |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | gerund | the big toad *not said here* |  | Dummling |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **want** | past | toad |  |  |  |  |  | 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:** «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 11027 (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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