---
title: Towards midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowin… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Towards midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one corner: ‘Au, miau! how cold we are!’ Who acts: midnight, king, something, we. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, 
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 106

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Towards midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one corner: ‘Au, miau! how cold we are!’

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**Who acts:** midnight, king, something, we · **What happens:** be, poke, blow, cry, fire · **To what, where:** fire, shudder, one corner

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (midnight, king, something, we), 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:pg2591:57:106
# text = Towards midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one corner: ‘Au, miau! how cold we are!’
1	Towards	towards	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	about	about	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	poke	poke	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	blowing	blow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	19	nsubj	_	_
19	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
20	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	from	from	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	23	nummod	_	_
23	corner	corner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	26	punct	_	_
25	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	Au	au	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
28	miau	miau	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	26	punct	_	_
30	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	31	advmod	_	_
31	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	obl	_	_
32	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
33	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	31	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | midnight |  |  |  |  | about *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **poke** | to-infinitive | midnight *not said here* | king's fire |  |  |  |  | vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent fire=Theme |
| 3 | **blow** | past · progressive | king | shudder |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 4 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | something |  |  | one corner |  | suddenly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is** | present | we |  |  |  |  | cold *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **fire** |  | king |  |  |  |  |  | nom fire «event transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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