---
title: ‘Open your sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,’ cried the cat to him, but… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Open your sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,’ cried the cat to him, but the dogs had already seized him, and were holding him fast. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Fox and the Cat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Fox and the Cat, sentence 18

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‘Open your sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,’ cried the cat to him, but the dogs had already seized him, and were holding him fast.

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**What happens:** open, cry, seize, hold · **To what, where:** sack, cat, fox, dogs

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Fox and the Cat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg2591:42:18
# text = ‘Open your sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,’ cried the cat to him, but the dogs had already seized him, and were holding him fast.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Open	open	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	14	parataxis	_	_
3	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	sack	sack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	Mr	Mr	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	open	open	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	sack	sack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
14	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj:pass	_	_
23	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	already	already	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	seized	seize	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	conj	_	_
26	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
29	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
30	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
31	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	obj	_	_
32	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	30	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | infinitive |  | your sack and Mr Fox |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location sack=Theme |
| 2 | **open** | infinitive |  | your sack |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location sack=Theme |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past |  | the cat | fox |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent cat=Topic to he=Recipient |
| 4 | **seize** | past · perfect · passive |  | the dogs |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **hold** | past · progressive |  | fox |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |

<!-- .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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