---
title: Then her husband was alarmed, and asked, "What ails you, dear wife?" " — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Then her husband was alarmed, and asked, "What ails you, dear wife?" " A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Six Swans, 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/pg11027/19/77/)

<!-- 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 Six Swans](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/19/) / 77

# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Six Swans, sentence 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then her husband was alarmed, and asked, "What ails you, dear wife?" "

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** alarm, ask, ail · **To what, where:** husband, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Six Swans. 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.

<!-- .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:pg11027:19:77
# text = Then her husband was alarmed, and asked, "What ails you, dear wife?" "
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
2	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	alarmed	alarm	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
12	ails	ail	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **alarm** | past · passive |  | desire's husband |  |  | then |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **ail** *in a quote* | present |  | you |  |  |  | dear wife *obl* | vn pain-40.8.1 «NP V NP.experiencer»: agent=Patient you=Experiencer |

<!-- .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 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/19/76/)
- next →: [sentence 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/19/78/)
- ↑ back to [The Six Swans](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/19/)