---
title: The little Man took the ring and began to spin at once, and by morni… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: The little Man took the ring and began to spin at once, and by morning all the straw was changed to glistening gold. Who acts: little Man. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Three Little Men in the Wood, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/24/103/)

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Three Little Men in the Wood, sentence 103

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The little Man took the ring and began to spin at once, and by morning all the straw was changed to glistening gold.

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**Who acts:** little Man · **What happens:** take, begin, spin, change, glisten · **To what, where:** ring, straw, gold

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Three Little Men in the Wood. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little Man), 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:pg11027:24:103
# text = The little Man took the ring and began to spin at once, and by morning all the straw was changed to glistening gold.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Man	Man	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	spin	spin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
15	by	by	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
17	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	19	det:predet	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	straw	straw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	changed	change	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
22	to	to	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
23	glistening	glisten	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	advcl	_	_
24	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | the little Man | the ring |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ring=Theme |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the little Man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **spin** | to-infinitive | the little Man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme at once=Trajectory |
| 4 | **change** | past · passive |  | all straw |  |  | morning |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 5 | **glisten** | gerund |  | gold |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent gold=Theme |

<!-- .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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