---
title: So they threatened they would drown him, if they caught him, and det… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: So they threatened they would drown him, if they caught him, and determined to do him some harm. Who acts: maids. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Travels of Tom Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/22/43/)

<!-- 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 Travels of Tom Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/22/) / 43

# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Travels of Tom Thumb, sentence 43

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So they threatened they would drown him, if they caught him, and determined to do him some harm.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** maids · **What happens:** threaten, drown, catch, do · **To what, where:** Tom

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Travels of Tom Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (maids), 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:pg11027:22:43
# text = So they threatened they would drown him, if they caught him, and determined to do him some harm.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	threatened	threaten	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	drown	drown	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	determined	determined	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	advcl	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	20	det	_	_
20	harm	harm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **threaten** | past | maids *= maid* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **drown** | would | maids *= maid* | Tom |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 3 | **catch** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | maids *= maid* | Tom |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 4 | **do** | to-infinitive | maids *= maid* *not said here* | Tom |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/22/42/)
- next →: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/22/44/)
- ↑ back to [The Travels of Tom Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/22/)