---
title: They ran thither and stuck their sticks into the mouse-hole, but it… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: They ran thither and stuck their sticks into the mouse-hole, but it was all lost labor. Who acts: gentlemen, hole. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Water of Life, sentence 113

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They ran thither and stuck their sticks into the mouse-hole, but it was all lost labor.

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**Who acts:** gentlemen, hole · **What happens:** run, stick, lose, be · **To what, where:** sticks, mouse hole, lost labor

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gentlemen, hole), 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:pg11027:17:113
# text = They ran thither and stuck their sticks into the mouse-hole, but it was all lost labor.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	thither	thither	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	stuck	stick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	into	into	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
17	all	all	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
18	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	amod	_	_
19	labor	labor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run** | past | gentlemen *= gentleman* |  |  |  |  | thither *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **stick** | past | gentlemen *= gentleman* *not said here* | gentlemen's sticks |  | the mouse hole |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent stick=Theme into hole=Destination |
| 3 | **lose** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | past | hole | lost labor |  |  |  | all *property* | tree rules |

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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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