---
title: As they came nearer they could see it was a dwarf, with a shrivelled… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: As they came nearer they could see it was a dwarf, with a shrivelled-up face and a snow-white beard an ell long. Who acts: sticks, ground. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Snow-white and Rose-red, 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/pg11027/23/46/)

<!-- 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/) / [Snow-white and Rose-red](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/23/) / 46

# Grimm's Fairy Stories, Snow-white and Rose-red, sentence 46

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
As they came nearer they could see it was a dwarf, with a shrivelled-up face and a snow-white beard an ell long.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sticks, ground · **What happens:** come, see, be, shrivell · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Snow-white and Rose-red. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sticks, ground), 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:pg11027:23:46
# text = As they came nearer they could see it was a dwarf, with a shrivelled-up face and a snow-white beard an ell long.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	nearer	near	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	dwarf	dwarf	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
15	shrivelled	shrivell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	up	up	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
18	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
21	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	_
25	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	ell	ell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl:unmarked	_	_
27	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | sticks *= stick* |  |  |  |  | near *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | could | sticks *= stick* |  |  |  |  | with a shrivelled face and a white beard | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | past | ground |  |  |  |  | dwarf *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **shrivell** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | 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 45](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/23/45/)
- next →: [sentence 47](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/23/47/)
- ↑ back to [Snow-white and Rose-red](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/23/)