---
title: ‘You silly creature!’ said the eldest, ‘it is nothing but a nail in… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘You silly creature!’ said the eldest, ‘it is nothing but a nail in the wall.’ Who acts: You, silly creature, creature. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 25

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‘You silly creature!’ said the eldest, ‘it is nothing but a nail in the wall.’

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**Who acts:** You, silly creature, creature · **What happens:** creature, say, be · **To what, where:** nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, silly creature, creature), 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:pg2591:10:25
# text = ‘You silly creature!’ said the eldest, ‘it is nothing but a nail in the wall.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	silly	silly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	ccomp	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	nail	nail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **creature** |  | You |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | silly creature |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | present | creature | nothing |  |  |  |  | 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:** «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (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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