---
title: But scarcely had he drunk a very little of the water when he became… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: But scarcely had he drunk a very little of the water when he became worse than before, for it was as bitter as wormwood. Who acts: Brother, water. 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 45

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But scarcely had he drunk a very little of the water when he became worse than before, for it was as bitter as wormwood.

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**Who acts:** Brother, water · **What happens:** drink, become, be · **To what, where:** little

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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 (Brother, water), 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:pg11027:17:45
# text = But scarcely had he drunk a very little of the water when he became worse than before, for it was as bitter as wormwood.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	drunk	drink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
15	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	14	xcomp	_	_
16	than	than	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	before	before	ADV	RB	_	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	as	as	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	bitter	bitter	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
24	as	as	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	wormwood	wormwood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drink** | past | Brother | a little of the water |  |  |  | scarcely *property* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **become** | past | Brother |  |  |  |  | bad *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | past | water |  |  |  |  | as wormwood; bitter *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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