---
title: They settled on the ground and began blowing one another until they… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: They settled on the ground and began blowing one another until they had blown all their feathers off, and their swan's down slipped from them like a shirt. Who acts: Swans, down. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Six Swans, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Six Swans, sentence 31

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They settled on the ground and began blowing one another until they had blown all their feathers off, and their swan's down slipped from them like a shirt.

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**Who acts:** Swans, down · **What happens:** settle, begin, blow, slip · **To what, where:** one, feathers

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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 (Swans, down), 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:pg11027:19:31
# text = They settled on the ground and began blowing one another until they had blown all their feathers off, and their swan's down slipped from them like a shirt.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	settled	settle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	blowing	blow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	xcomp	_	_
9	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	obj	_	_
10	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	fixed	_	_
11	until	until	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	blown	blow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	xcomp	_	_
15	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	17	det:predet	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
18	off	off	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
21	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	swan	swan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	's	's	PART	POS	_	22	case	_	_
24	down	down	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
25	slipped	slip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
26	from	from	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	_
28	like	like	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	shirt	shirt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **settle** | past | Swans *= swan* |  |  |  |  | on the ground | vn correspond-36.1 «NP V PP.theme S»: agent=Agent on ground=Topic |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Swans *= swan* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **blow** | gerund | Swans *= swan* *not said here* | one |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent one=Patient |
| 4 | **blow** | past · perfect | Swans *= swan* | Swans's feathers |  |  |  | off *property* | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent feather=Patient |
| 5 | **slip** | past | Swans's swan's down |  |  |  |  | from Swans *= swan*; like a shirt | vn split-23.2 «NP V PP.co-patient»: agent=Patient from they=Co-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.

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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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