---
title: ‘Alas!’ said he to his wife, ‘what ill luck has befallen me!--my win… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Alas!’ said he to his wife, ‘what ill luck has befallen me!--my wine is all spilt, and my horses all three dead.’ Who acts: harm, wine. 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 44

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Alas!’ said he to his wife, ‘what ill luck has befallen me!--my wine is all spilt, and my horses all three dead.’

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**Who acts:** harm, wine · **What happens:** say, befall, be · **To what, where:** wife, ill luck · **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 (harm, wine), 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:pg2591:9:44
# text = ‘Alas!’ said he to his wife, ‘what ill luck has befallen me!--my wine is all spilt, and my horses all three dead.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
13	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	luck	luck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	befallen	befall	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
17	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	wine	wine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
22	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	all	all	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	spilt	spilt	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
27	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	nsubj	_	_
29	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	30	det	_	_
30	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	31	nummod	_	_
31	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | harm |  | harm's wife |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to wife=Recipient |
| 2 | **befall** | present · perfect · passive |  | ill luck |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | present | my wine |  |  |  |  | all, spilt *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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