---
title: But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings,… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings, and crying: ‘Oh, what helpless chicks we are! Who acts: poor young ravens. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The White Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/34/32/)

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The White Snake, sentence 32

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings, and crying: ‘Oh, what helpless chicks we are!

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**Who acts:** poor young ravens · **What happens:** lay, flap, cry, chick · **To what, where:** ground, wings

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The White Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor young ravens), 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:pg2591:34:32
# text = But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings, and crying: ‘Oh, what helpless chicks we are!
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	ravens	raven	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	flapping	flap	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	crying	cry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
18	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	23	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
21	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	23	nsubj	_	_
22	helpless	helpless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	chicks	chick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
24	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | present | the poor young ravens |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent upon ground=Destination |
| 2 | **flap** | gerund | the poor young ravens *not said here* | ravens's wings |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wing=Patient |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | gerund | the poor young ravens *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **chick** |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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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