---
title: ‘Good lack-a-day!’ said he, ‘how came I to tumble into the mill?’ — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Good lack-a-day!’ said he, ‘how came I to tumble into the mill?’ Who acts: Good lack, I. 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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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Tom Thumb, sentence 68

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‘Good lack-a-day!’ said he, ‘how came I to tumble into the mill?’

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**Who acts:** Good lack, I · **What happens:** say, come, tumble · **To what, where:** mill · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Good lack, I), 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:pg2591:25:68
# text = ‘Good lack-a-day!’ said he, ‘how came I to tumble into the mill?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	lack	lack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
15	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	tumble	tumble	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
19	into	into	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	mill	mill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	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 | Good lack |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **come** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **tumble** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  | the mill |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into mill=Initial\_Location |

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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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