---
title: The wolf thought to himself: ‘What a tender young creature! what a n… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The wolf thought to himself: ‘What a tender young creature! what a nice plump mouthful--she will be better to eat than the old woman. Who acts: wolf, mouthful. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Little Red-cap [little Red Riding Hood], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Little Red-cap \[little Red Riding Hood\], sentence 16

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The wolf thought to himself: ‘What a tender young creature! what a nice plump mouthful--she will be better to eat than the old woman.

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**Who acts:** wolf, mouthful · **What happens:** think, be, eat · **To what, where:** wolf

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Little Red-cap \[little Red Riding Hood\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wolf, mouthful), 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:pg2591:23:16
# text = The wolf thought to himself: ‘What a tender young creature! what a nice plump mouthful--she will be better to eat than the old woman.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
7	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	12	det	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	tender	tender	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
11	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	parataxis	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	plump	plump	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	mouthful	mouthful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	cop	_	_
23	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	parataxis	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	advcl	_	_
26	than	than	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the wolf |  | wolf |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | future | mouthful |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | mouthful *not said here* |  |  |  |  | than the old woman | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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