---
title: Ah! you old water-paddler," said she, "was it you that spoke? — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Ah! you old water-paddler," said she, "was it you that spoke? Who acts: you, old water paddler, paddler. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Frog Prince, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Frog Prince, sentence 8

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Ah! you old water-paddler," said she, "was it you that spoke?

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**Who acts:** you, old water paddler, paddler · **What happens:** paddler, say, be, speak · **To what, where:** spot · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Frog Prince. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, old water paddler, paddler), 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:pg11027:21:8
# text = Ah! you old water-paddler," said she, "was it you that spoke?
1	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
5	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	paddler	paddler	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	ccomp	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	nsubj	_	_
18	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **paddler** |  | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | old water paddler |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** | past | paddler | spot |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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