---
title: The knights could hardly believe him, till, riding into the forest,… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: The knights could hardly believe him, till, riding into the forest, they found the Giants lying dead, and the uprooted trees around them. Who acts: knights, Giants. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Valiant Little Tailor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every c
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Valiant Little Tailor, sentence 99

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The knights could hardly believe him, till, riding into the forest, they found the Giants lying dead, and the uprooted trees around them.

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**Who acts:** knights, Giants · **What happens:** believe, ride, find, lie, uproot · **To what, where:** man, forest, Giants

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Valiant Little Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (knights, Giants), 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:pg11027:13:99
# text = The knights could hardly believe him, till, riding into the forest, they found the Giants lying dead, and the uprooted trees around them.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	knights	knight	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	riding	ride	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
11	into	into	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	Giants	Giant	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	acl	_	_
20	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	uprooted	uproot	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	25	amod	_	_
25	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	_
26	around	around	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **believe** | could | the knights | man |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 2 | **ride** | gerund | the knights *not said here* |  |  | the forest |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent into forest=Trajectory |
| 3 | **find** | past | knights *= knight* | the Giants |  |  |  | the uprooted trees around stones *obl* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent giant=Topic |
| 4 | **lie** | gerund | the Giants *not said here* |  |  |  |  | dead *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **uproot** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: 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:** «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 11027 (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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