---
title: ‘Is it JOHN?’ asked she. — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Is it JOHN?’ asked she. Who acts: nurse, JOHN. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Tom Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/25/147/)

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Tom Thumb, sentence 147

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‘Is it JOHN?’ asked she.

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**Who acts:** nurse, JOHN · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** JOHN, name

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Tom Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nurse, JOHN), 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:pg2591:25:147
# text = ‘Is it JOHN?’ asked she.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	JOHN	JOHN	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | nurse | JOHN |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | JOHN |  | name |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Recipient |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 146](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/25/146/)
- next →: [sentence 148](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/25/148/)
- ↑ back to [Tom Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/25/)