---
title: His brothers, however, were hard-hearted, and said, "What could we d… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: His brothers, however, were hard-hearted, and said, "What could we do with you? Who acts: brothers, we. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Golden Goose, sentence 50

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His brothers, however, were hard-hearted, and said, "What could we do with you?

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**Who acts:** brothers, we · **What happens:** be, say, do · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, we), 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:pg11027:15:50
# text = His brothers, however, were hard-hearted, and said, "What could we do with you?
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	however	however	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	hearted	hearted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	18	obj	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Dummerly's brothers |  |  |  |  | hearted, however *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Dummerly's brothers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | could | we |  |  |  |  | with you | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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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