---
title: They came back and whispered to him, "Come, be serious, and reach so… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: They came back and whispered to him, "Come, be serious, and reach something out to us." Who acts: thieves. 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 136

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They came back and whispered to him, "Come, be serious, and reach something out to us."

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**Who acts:** thieves · **What happens:** come back, whisper, come, be, reach out · **To what, where:** rascal, something, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (thieves), 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:pg11027:17:136
# text = They came back and whispered to him, "Come, be serious, and reach something out to us."
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	back	back	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
13	serious	serious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	reach	reach	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	_
17	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	16	obj	_	_
18	out	out	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come back** | past | thieves *= thief* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | past | thieves *= thief* *not said here* |  | rascal |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient that S»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **come** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | serious *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **reach out** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | something | us |  |  | out *property* | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent something=Theme |

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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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