---
title: "Who's there?" asked the old lady. — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: "Who's there?" asked the old lady. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Little Red Cap, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, Little Red Cap, sentence 22

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"Who's there?" asked the old lady.

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**What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** old lady · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Little Red Cap. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg11027:14:22
# text = "Who's there?" asked the old lady.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | there *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | the old lady |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent lady=Recipient |

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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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