---
title: ‘Dear children,’ said a poor man to his four sons, ‘I have nothing t… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Dear children,’ said a poor man to his four sons, ‘I have nothing to give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Who acts: Dear children, I, you. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Four Clever Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every c
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/43/1/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Grimms' Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/) / [The Four Clever Brothers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/43/) / 1

# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Four Clever Brothers, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Dear children,’ said a poor man to his four sons, ‘I have nothing to give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Dear children, I, you · **What happens:** say, have, give, go out, try · **To what, where:** four sons, nothing, you, wide world, luck · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Four Clever Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dear children, I, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2591:43:1
# text = ‘Dear children,’ said a poor man to his four sons, ‘I have nothing to give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
18	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	17	obj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	acl	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	25	punct	_	_
23	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
24	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
26	out	out	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
27	into	into	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
32	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	conj	_	_
33	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	34	nmod:poss	_	_
34	luck	luck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Dear children |  | man's four sons |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to son=Recipient |
| 2 | **have** | present | I | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 3 | **give** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | nothing *not said here* | you |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Theme |
| 4 | **go out** | must | you |  |  | the wide world |  | out *property* | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **try** | infinitive | you *not said here* | your luck |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent luck=Eventuality |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [The Fox and the Cat, 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/42/21/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/43/2/)
- ↑ back to [The Four Clever Brothers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/43/)