---
title: On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the dwarf said, ‘Here come my masters.’ Who acts: sister, dwarf. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Seven Ravens, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Seven Ravens, sentence 23

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On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the dwarf said, ‘Here come my masters.’

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**Who acts:** sister, dwarf · **What happens:** hear, flutter, croak, say, come · **To what, where:** a, air, masters · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Seven Ravens. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sister, dwarf), 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:pg2591:53:23
# text = On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the dwarf said, ‘Here come my masters.’
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sudden	sudden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	obj	_	_
7	fluttering	flutter	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	croaking	croak	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	conj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	dwarf	dwarf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	‘	‘	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	Here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	21	advmod	_	_
21	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	_
22	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	masters	master	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | sister | a |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer a=Stimulus |
| 2 | **flutter** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **croak** | gerund |  |  |  | the air |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the dwarf |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **come** | infinitive |  | my masters |  | here |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location master=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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