---
title: The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and thought to himself:… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and thought to himself: ‘Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is! Who acts: elder brother, brother, Goodness. 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 
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 12

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The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and thought to himself: ‘Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is!

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**Who acts:** elder brother, brother, Goodness · **What happens:** smile, hear, think, blockhead, be · **To what, where:** that, brother

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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 (elder brother, brother, Goodness), 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:pg2591:57:12
# text = The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and thought to himself: ‘Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is!
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	elder	elder	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	smiled	smile	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	Goodness	goodness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	advmod	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	blockhead	blockhead	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	appos	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	22	det	_	_
22	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	mine	my	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod	_	_
25	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **smile** | past | the elder brother |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hear** | past | brother | that |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer that=Stimulus |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | participle | the elder brother *not said here* |  | brother |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **blockhead** |  | that brother of mine |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** | present | Goodness |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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