---
title: But she only answered, ‘A nice thing to ask me to do, one of the app… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But she only answered, ‘A nice thing to ask me to do, one of the apples might fall on my head,’ and passed on. Who acts: girl, one. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Mother Holle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/22/40/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Grimms' Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/) / [Mother Holle](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/22/) / 40

# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Mother Holle, sentence 40

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But she only answered, ‘A nice thing to ask me to do, one of the apples might fall on my head,’ and passed on.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** girl, one · **What happens:** answer, ask, do, fall, pass on · **To what, where:** me, head · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Mother Holle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girl, one), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2591:22:40
# text = But she only answered, ‘A nice thing to ask me to do, one of the apples might fall on my head,’ and passed on.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	nsubj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	apples	apple	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
20	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
22	on	on	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	21	punct	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
29	on	on	ADP	RP	_	28	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | girl |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive | girl *not said here* |  | me |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **fall** | might | one of the apples |  |  | my head |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on head=Location |
| 5 | **pass on** | participle | girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn send-11.1 «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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 39](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/22/39/)
- next →: [sentence 41](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/22/41/)
- ↑ back to [Mother Holle](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/22/)