---
title: ‘Bless me!’ said the old woman, ‘how badly your stays are laced! — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Bless me!’ said the old woman, ‘how badly your stays are laced! Who acts: old woman. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Sweetheart Roland, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Sweetheart Roland, sentence 108

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‘Bless me!’ said the old woman, ‘how badly your stays are laced!

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**Who acts:** old woman · **What happens:** bless, say, stay, lace · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Sweetheart Roland. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old woman), 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:pg2591:30:108
# text = ‘Bless me!’ said the old woman, ‘how badly your stays are laced!
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Bless	bless	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
13	badly	badly	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	_
14	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	stays	stay	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
16	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	laced	lace	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bless** | infinitive |  | me |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **stay** | present |  |  |  |  |  | badly *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **lace** | present · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn tape-22.4 «NP V ADV-Middle» |

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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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