---
title: They went out before me in search of the water of life, and did not… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: They went out before me in search of the water of life, and did not return." " Who acts: sword. 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 34

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They went out before me in search of the water of life, and did not return." "

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**Who acts:** sword · **What happens:** go out, not return, search · **To what, where:** search, water

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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 (sword), 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:pg11027:17:34
# text = They went out before me in search of the water of life, and did not return." "
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	out	out	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	before	before	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	search	search	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	return	return	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go out** | past | sword |  |  | search of the water of life | before me | out *property* | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **return** | past · do-support |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **search** |  |  | the water of life |  |  |  |  | nom search «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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