---
title: ‘Elsie why do you weep?’ asked the maid. — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Elsie why do you weep?’ asked the maid. Who acts: Elsie. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Clever Elsie, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Clever Elsie, sentence 16

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‘Elsie why do you weep?’ asked the maid.

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**Who acts:** Elsie · **What happens:** weep, ask · **To what, where:** maid · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Clever Elsie. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Elsie), 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:pg2591:32:16
# text = ‘Elsie why do you weep?’ asked the maid.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Elsie	Elsie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	weep	weep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **weep** | present · do-support | Elsie |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | the maid |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent maid=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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