---
title: If it holds the water, I will again take a wife; but if it runs thro… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: If it holds the water, I will again take a wife; but if it runs through, I will not have her." Who acts: boot, I. 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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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Three Little Men in the Wood, sentence 7

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If it holds the water, I will again take a wife; but if it runs through, I will not have her."

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**Who acts:** boot, I · **What happens:** hold, take, run through, not have · **To what, where:** water, wife

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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 (boot, I), 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:pg11027:24:7
# text = If it holds the water, I will again take a wife; but if it runs through, I will not have her."
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	holds	hold	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	again	again	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	runs	run	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	_
18	through	through	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
20	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
24	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | boot | the water |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Theme |
| 2 | **take** | future | I |  | a wife |  | again |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument wife=Destination |
| 3 | **run through** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | boot |  |  |  |  | through *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **have** | future | I | wife |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=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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