---
title: There they met an old man, who asked the cause of their grief, and t… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: There they met an old man, who asked the cause of their grief, and they told him their Father was so ill that he must die, for nothing could save him. Who acts: sons, old man, Father, nothing. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life, with its dependency tree and the p
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/2/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Water of Life](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/) / 2

# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Water of Life, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There they met an old man, who asked the cause of their grief, and they told him their Father was so ill that he must die, for nothing could save him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sons, old man, Father, nothing · **What happens:** meet, ask, tell, be, die, save · **To what, where:** old man, cause, man, Father, grief · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (sons, old man, Father, nothing), 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:pg11027:17:2
# text = There they met an old man, who asked the cause of their grief, and they told him their Father was so ill that he must die, for nothing could save him.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	cause	cause	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	grief	grief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	iobj	_	_
20	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	Father	Father	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	so	so	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	ccomp	_	_
25	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
26	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
27	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
30	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	33	mark	_	_
31	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	33	nsubj	_	_
32	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	_
33	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	conj	_	_
34	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | sons *= son* | a old man |  | there |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | a old man | the cause of sons's grief |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent cause=Recipient |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | sons *= son* |  | man |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 4 | **is** | past | sons's Father |  |  |  |  | ill *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **die** | must | Father |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 6 | **save** | could | nothing | Father |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 7 | **cause** |  |  | sons's grief |  |  |  |  | nom cause «event transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/3/)
- ↑ back to [The Water of Life](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/17/)