---
title: The straw hit on a good idea, and said: ‘I will lay myself straight… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The straw hit on a good idea, and said: ‘I will lay myself straight across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.’ Who acts: straw, I, you. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/7/14/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Grimms' Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/) / [The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/7/) / 14

# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The straw hit on a good idea, and said: ‘I will lay myself straight across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** straw, I, you · **What happens:** hit, say, lay, walk over · **To what, where:** straw, good idea, myself · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (straw, I, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2591:7:14
# text = The straw hit on a good idea, and said: ‘I will lay myself straight across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.’
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	straw	straw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
3	hit	hit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	idea	idea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
16	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	15	obj	_	_
17	straight	straight	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	across	across	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	24	advmod	_	_
22	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	walk	walk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
25	over	over	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
26	on	on	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	obl	_	_
28	as	as	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	on	on	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	bridge	bridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hit** | participle |  | the straw *not said here* |  | a good idea |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the straw |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **lay** | future | I | myself |  |  |  | across *property* | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent myself=Result |
| 4 | **walk over** | can | you |  |  |  | then | on me; as a bridge; over *property* | vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/7/13/)
- next →: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/7/15/)
- ↑ back to [The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/7/)