---
title: On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, ‘Why are you so sad,… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, ‘Why are you so sad, my friend?’ Who acts: dog, sparrow, you. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Dog and the Sparrow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Dog and the Sparrow, sentence 3

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On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, ‘Why are you so sad, my friend?’

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**Who acts:** dog, sparrow, you · **What happens:** meet, say, be · **To what, where:** sparrow, road, dog · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Dog and the Sparrow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dog, sparrow, you), 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:pg2591:9:3
# text = On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, ‘Why are you so sad, my friend?’
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	sparrow	sparrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
15	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | dog | a sparrow |  | the road |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sparrow=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a sparrow |  | dog |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |
| 3 | **is** | present | you |  |  |  |  | my friend *obl*; sad *property* | tree rules |

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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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