---
title: He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes. Who acts: son. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Six Swans, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Six Swans, sentence 125

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He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes.

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**Who acts:** son · **What happens:** escape, pierce · **To what, where:** thorns, son

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Six Swans. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son), 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:pg11027:19:125
# text = He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	escaped	escape	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	thorns	thorn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
10	into	into	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	obl	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	pierced	pierce	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl:relcl	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **escape** | past | son | the thorns |  |  |  | with son's life | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pierce** | past · passive |  | son |  | the thorns |  |  | 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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