---
title: They caught hold of him firmly and endeavored to untwist his beard f… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: They caught hold of him firmly and endeavored to untwist his beard from the line, but in vain; they were too tightly entangled. Who acts: girls. 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.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, Snow-white and Rose-red, sentence 77

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They caught hold of him firmly and endeavored to untwist his beard from the line, but in vain; they were too tightly entangled.

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**Who acts:** girls · **What happens:** catch, endeavor, untwist, entangle, hold · **To what, where:** hold, beard, line, wind

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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 (girls), 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:pg11027:23:77
# text = They caught hold of him firmly and endeavored to untwist his beard from the line, but in vain; they were too tightly entangled.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nmod	_	_
6	firmly	firmly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	endeavored	endeavor	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	untwist	untwist	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	from	from	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	line	line	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
22	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
23	too	too	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	tightly	tightly	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	entangled	entangle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** | past | girls *= girl* | hold of wind |  |  |  | firmly *property* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Theme |
| 2 | **endeavor** | past | girls *= girl* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **untwist** | to-infinitive | girls *= girl* *not said here* | wind's beard |  | the line |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **entangle** | past · passive | girls *= girl* |  |  |  |  | tightly *property* | vn amalgamate-22.2-2 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **hold** |  |  | wind |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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