---
title: “Then,” said the door, “Broom, why do you sweep?” — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Then,” said the door, “Broom, why do you sweep?” Who acts: door, you. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse, 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/pg7439/19/14/)

<!-- 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/) / [English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/) / [Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/) / 14

# English Fairy Tales, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Then,” said the door, “Broom, why do you sweep?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** door, you · **What happens:** say, sweep · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (door, 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:pg7439:19:14
# text = “Then,” said the door, “Broom, why do you sweep?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	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	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Broom	broom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
13	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	sweep	sweep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the door and Broom |  |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **sweep** *in a quote* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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/pg7439/19/13/)
- next →: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/15/)
- ↑ back to [Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/)