---
title: But Tom did not approve of his position, for it was pitch dark down… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: But Tom did not approve of his position, for it was pitch dark down there, with no light burning. Who acts: Tom, position, light. 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.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Travels of Tom Thumb, sentence 46

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But Tom did not approve of his position, for it was pitch dark down there, with no light burning.

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**Who acts:** Tom, position, light · **What happens:** not approve, be, burn

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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 (Tom, position, light), 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:pg11027:22:46
# text = But Tom did not approve of his position, for it was pitch dark down there, with no light burning.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	approve	approve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	position	position	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	pitch	pitch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
14	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
15	down	down	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	20	det	_	_
20	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	burning	burn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **approve** | past · do-support | Tom |  |  |  |  | of Tom's position | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** | past | position |  |  |  |  | pitch *obl:unmarked*; dark *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **burn** | gerund | no light |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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