---
title: Pray give the girl some work to do, that she may not be idle." — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Pray give the girl some work to do, that she may not be idle." Who acts: you, some, maid. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Goose-girl, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Goose-girl, sentence 27

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Pray give the girl some work to do, that she may not be idle."

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**Who acts:** you, some, maid · **What happens:** pray, give, work, do, not be · **To what, where:** girl

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Goose-girl. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, some, maid), 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:pg11027:6:27
# text = Pray give the girl some work to do, that she may not be idle."
1	Pray	pray	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	reparandum	_	_
2	give	give	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	6	nsubj	_	_
6	work	work	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
12	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	cop	_	_
15	idle	idle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pray** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **give** | imperative | you *not said here* | the girl |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent girl=Theme |
| 3 | **work** | present | some | the girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent girl=Theme clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **do** | to-infinitive | some *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **not** **is** | may | maid |  |  |  |  | idle *property* | tree rules |

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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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