---
title: The miller was curious, and said: ‘Let him foretell something for on… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The miller was curious, and said: ‘Let him foretell something for once.’ Who acts: miller. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Little Peasant, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Little Peasant, sentence 39

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The miller was curious, and said: ‘Let him foretell something for once.’

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**Who acts:** miller · **What happens:** be, say, let, foretell · **To what, where:** miller, something · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Little Peasant. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (miller), 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:pg2591:28:39
# text = The miller was curious, and said: ‘Let him foretell something for once.’
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	miller	miller	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	foretell	foretell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	obj	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the miller |  |  |  |  | curious *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the miller *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **let** | infinitive |  | miller |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **foretell** | infinitive | miller *not said here* | something |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Theme |

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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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