---
title: ‘Faith,’ said he, ‘that was a little better, wasn’t it?’ — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Faith,’ said he, ‘that was a little better, wasn’t it?’ Who acts: Faith, that. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Valiant Little Tailor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Valiant Little Tailor, sentence 36

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‘Faith,’ said he, ‘that was a little better, wasn’t it?’

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**Who acts:** Faith, that · **What happens:** say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Valiant Little Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Faith, that), 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:pg2591:19:36
# text = ‘Faith,’ said he, ‘that was a little better, wasn’t it?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Faith	faith	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	‘	‘	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	obl	_	_
13	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	conj	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	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 | Faith |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | that |  |  |  |  | a little *obl*; good *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:** «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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