---
title: What was that?" said one of the thieves in a fright; "I heard some o… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: What was that?" said one of the thieves in a fright; "I heard some one speaking." Who acts: I, one. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/122/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Grimm's Fairy Stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/) / [The Water of Life](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/) / 122

# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Water of Life, sentence 122

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
What was that?" said one of the thieves in a fright; "I heard some one speaking."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, one · **What happens:** be, say, hear, speak · **To what, where:** that, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, one), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg11027:17:122
# text = What was that?" said one of the thieves in a fright; "I heard some one speaking."
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	nsubj:outer	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	1	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nsubj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	thieves	thief	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	fright	fright	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
18	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	19	det	_	_
19	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	speaking	speak	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | that |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **hear** | past | I | some one |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer one=Stimulus |
| 4 | **speak** *speech: other* | gerund | some one *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 121](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/121/)
- next →: [sentence 123](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/123/)
- ↑ back to [The Water of Life](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/)