---
title: A wagoner walking behind overheard him, and asked, "Who are you?" — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: A wagoner walking behind overheard him, and asked, "Who are you?" Who acts: wagoner, you. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Oh, If I Could But Shiver!, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, Oh, If I Could But Shiver!, sentence 68

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A wagoner walking behind overheard him, and asked, "Who are you?"

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**Who acts:** wagoner, you · **What happens:** walk behind, overhear, ask, be · **To what, where:** boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Oh, If I Could But Shiver!. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wagoner, 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:pg11027:9:68
# text = A wagoner walking behind overheard him, and asked, "Who are you?"
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	wagoner	wagoner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	walking	walk	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
4	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	overheard	overhear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	parataxis	_	_
13	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **walk behind** | gerund | a wagoner *not said here* |  |  |  |  | behind *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **overhear** | past | a wagoner | boy |  |  |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | a wagoner *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | 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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