---
title: He stopped playing, and listened to what they were saying to each ot… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He stopped playing, and listened to what they were saying to each other, for he understood them perfectly. Who acts: John, heart. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Faithful John, 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/pg11027/16/55/)

<!-- 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/) / [Grimm's Fairy Stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/) / [Faithful John](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/16/) / 55

# Grimm's Fairy Stories, Faithful John, sentence 55

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He stopped playing, and listened to what they were saying to each other, for he understood them perfectly.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** John, heart · **What happens:** stop, play, listen, say, understand · **To what, where:** each, heart · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Faithful John. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (John, heart), 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:pg11027:16:55
# text = He stopped playing, and listened to what they were saying to each other, for he understood them perfectly.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stopped	stop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	playing	play	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	listened	listen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	6	obl	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	11	obl	_	_
14	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	understood	understand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	perfectly	perfectly	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stop** | past | John |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **play** | gerund | John *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **listen** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to what=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · progressive | heart |  | each |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to each=Recipient |
| 5 | **understand** | past | John | heart |  |  |  | perfectly *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 54](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/16/54/)
- next →: [sentence 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/16/56/)
- ↑ back to [Faithful John](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/16/)