---
title: ‘Because,’ said the dog, ‘I am very very hungry, and have nothing to… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Because,’ said the dog, ‘I am very very hungry, and have nothing to eat.’ Who acts: I. 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 4

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‘Because,’ said the dog, ‘I am very very hungry, and have nothing to eat.’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** say, be, have, eat · **To what, where:** dog, nothing · **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 (I), 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:pg2591:9:4
# text = ‘Because,’ said the dog, ‘I am very very hungry, and have nothing to eat.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
18	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	17	obj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the dog |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent dog=Topic |
| 2 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | hungry *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | present |  | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 4 | **eat** | to-infinitive |  | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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