---
title: ‘Ah!’ said the man, as he gazed upon her, ‘what a fine thing it is t… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ah!’ said the man, as he gazed upon her, ‘what a fine thing it is to be emperor!’ Who acts: man, thing. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 78

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‘Ah!’ said the man, as he gazed upon her, ‘what a fine thing it is to be emperor!’

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**Who acts:** man, thing · **What happens:** say, gaze, be · **To what, where:** man, emperor · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, thing), 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:pg2591:11:78
# text = ‘Ah!’ said the man, as he gazed upon her, ‘what a fine thing it is to be emperor!’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	gazed	gaze	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	parataxis	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
21	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
23	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	cop	_	_
24	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the man |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent man=Topic |
| 2 | **gaze** | past | man |  |  |  |  | upon wife | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent upon she=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | present | thing | emperor |  |  |  |  | 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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