---
title: ‘Ah, me!’ said the cat, ‘how can one be in good spirits when one’s l… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ah, me!’ said the cat, ‘how can one be in good spirits when one’s life is in danger? Who acts: me, one life. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Travelling Musicians, 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/pg2591/5/11/)

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Travelling Musicians, sentence 11

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‘Ah, me!’ said the cat, ‘how can one be in good spirits when one’s life is in danger?

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**Who acts:** me, one life · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** cat, one good spirits, danger · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Travelling Musicians. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (me, one life), 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:pg2591:5:11
# text = ‘Ah, me!’ said the cat, ‘how can one be in good spirits when one’s life is in danger?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
13	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	cop	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	spirits	spirit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	parataxis	_	_
19	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	25	mark	_	_
20	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	nummod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	's	PART	POS	_	20	case	_	_
22	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
23	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	danger	danger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | me | the cat |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent cat=Topic |
| 2 | **is** | can |  |  |  | one good spirits |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | present | one life |  |  | danger |  |  | tree rules |

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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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