---
title: "Why, how now, good mother," said the princess, "what are you doing… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: "Why, how now, good mother," said the princess, "what are you doing there?" Who acts: good mother, you. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Briar Rose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, Briar Rose, sentence 15

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"Why, how now, good mother," said the princess, "what are you doing there?"

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**Who acts:** good mother, you · **What happens:** say, do · **To what, where:** princess · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Briar Rose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (good mother, you), 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:pg11027:18:15
# text = "Why, how now, good mother," said the princess, "what are you doing there?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
4	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
5	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	obj	_	_
17	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
20	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | good mother | the princess |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | present · progressive | you |  |  | there |  |  | 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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