---
title: ‘I have been playing at nine-pins,’ he answered, ‘and have lost a co… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I have been playing at nine-pins,’ he answered, ‘and have lost a couple of farthings.’ Who acts: I, king. 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 158

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‘I have been playing at nine-pins,’ he answered, ‘and have lost a couple of farthings.’

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**Who acts:** I, king · **What happens:** play, answer, lose · **To what, where:** nine pins, couple · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (I, king), 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:pg2591:57:158
# text = ‘I have been playing at nine-pins,’ he answered, ‘and have lost a couple of farthings.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	aux	_	_
5	playing	play	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	nine	nine	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	pins	pin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
15	‘	‘	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	ccomp	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	farthings	farthing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | present · perfect · progressive | I |  |  | nine pins |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | king |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **lose** | present · perfect |  | a couple of farthings |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent couple=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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