---
title: The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it of the… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it of the little man. Who acts: giant. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Valiant Little Tailor, 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/pg2591/19/37/)

<!-- 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/) / [Grimms' Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/) / [The Valiant Little Tailor](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/19/) / 37

# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Valiant Little Tailor, sentence 37

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it of the little man.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** giant · **What happens:** not know, say, not believe · **To what, where:** liquid · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Valiant Little Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (giant), 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:pg2591:19:37
# text = The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it of the little man.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | the giant |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **believe** | could | the giant *not said here* | liquid |  |  |  | of the little man | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

<!-- .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:** «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (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 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/19/36/)
- next →: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/19/38/)
- ↑ back to [The Valiant Little Tailor](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/19/)