---
title: Nothing could be more proper," said the old woman, "than to put such… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Nothing could be more proper," said the old woman, "than to put such a one into a cask, stuck round with nails, and to roll it down the hill into the water." Who acts: Nothing, old woman. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Three Little Men in the Wood, with its dependency tree
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11027/24/84/)

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Three Little Men in the Wood, sentence 84

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Nothing could be more proper," said the old woman, "than to put such a one into a cask, stuck round with nails, and to roll it down the hill into the water."

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**Who acts:** Nothing, old woman · **What happens:** be, say, put, stick, roll down · **To what, where:** one, cask, nail, water · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Nothing, old woman), 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:pg11027:24:84
# text = Nothing could be more proper," said the old woman, "than to put such a one into a cask, stuck round with nails, and to roll it down the hill into the water."
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	5	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
4	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	amod	_	_
5	proper	proper	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
17	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	19	det:predet	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	obj	_	_
20	into	into	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	cask	cask	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	stuck	stick	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	22	acl	_	_
25	round	round	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
26	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	nails	nail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	to	to	PART	TO	_	31	mark	_	_
31	roll	roll	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	conj	_	_
32	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	obj	_	_
33	down	down	ADP	RP	_	31	compound:prt	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obj	_	_
36	into	into	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
37	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	38	det	_	_
38	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | could | Nothing |  |  |  |  | proper *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **put** | to-infinitive | Nothing *not said here* | such one |  | a cask |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent one=Goal |
| 4 | **stick** | participle |  | a cask *not said here* |  |  |  | with nails; round *property* | vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with nail=Instrument |
| 5 | **roll down** | to-infinitive | Nothing *not said here* | nail |  | the water |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP ADJ.result»: agent=Agent it=Theme hill=Result |

<!-- .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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