---
title: The fowls began to turn brown, and were nearly ready, but the guest… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The fowls began to turn brown, and were nearly ready, but the guest had not yet arrived. Who acts: fowls. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Clever Gretel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Clever Gretel, sentence 6

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The fowls began to turn brown, and were nearly ready, but the guest had not yet arrived.

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**Who acts:** fowls · **What happens:** begin, turn, be, not arrive · **To what, where:** guest

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Clever Gretel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fowls), 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:pg2591:26:6
# text = The fowls began to turn brown, and were nearly ready, but the guest had not yet arrived.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	fowls	fowl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	brown	brown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	guest	guest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
18	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	arrived	arrive	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | the fowls |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **turn** | to-infinitive | the fowls *not said here* |  |  |  |  | brown *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | the fowls *not said here* |  |  |  |  | nearly, ready *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **arrive** | past · perfect · passive |  | the guest |  |  | yet |  | 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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