---
title: While this was passing, a duck came quacking up and cried out, ‘You… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: While this was passing, a duck came quacking up and cried out, ‘You thieving vagabonds, what business have you in my grounds? Who acts: this, duck, You. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, 1. How They Went to the Mountains to Eat Nuts, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, 1. How They Went to the Mountains to Eat Nuts, sentence 7

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
While this was passing, a duck came quacking up and cried out, ‘You thieving vagabonds, what business have you in my grounds?

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**Who acts:** this, duck, You · **What happens:** pass, come, quack up, cry out, thieve, have · **To what, where:** vagabonds, grounds

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, 1. How They Went to the Mountains to Eat Nuts. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (this, duck, 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:pg2591:16:7
# text = While this was passing, a duck came quacking up and cried out, ‘You thieving vagabonds, what business have you in my grounds?
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	passing	pass	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	quacking	quack	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
10	up	up	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
13	out	out	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	thieving	thieve	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
18	vagabonds	vagabond	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	21	det	_	_
21	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	_
22	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
23	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	grounds	grounds	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | past · progressive | this |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **come** | past | a duck |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **quack up** | gerund | a duck *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **cry out** *speech: express* | past | a duck *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **thieve** | gerund | You | vagabonds and what business |  |  |  |  | vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent vagabond=Theme |
| 6 | **have** | present | you |  |  | my grounds |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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