---
title: ‘Why not?’ he replied, ‘but just show me your paws.’ — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Why not?’ he replied, ‘but just show me your paws.’ Who acts: fire. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 111

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‘Why not?’ he replied, ‘but just show me your paws.’

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**Who acts:** fire · **What happens:** reply, show · **To what, where:** paws, me

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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 (fire), 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:pg2591:57:111
# text = ‘Why not?’ he replied, ‘but just show me your paws.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	‘	‘	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	just	just	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	show	show	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	paws	paw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | fire |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **show** | infinitive | fire *not said here* | your paws | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient paw=Topic |

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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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