---
title: They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to th… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to the king, and begged for their dismissal. Who acts: soldiers. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Valiant Little Tailor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Valiant Little Tailor, sentence 79

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They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to the king, and begged for their dismissal.

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**Who acts:** soldiers · **What happens:** come, betake, beg, dismiss · **To what, where:** decision, soldiers, body

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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 (soldiers), 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:pg2591:19:79
# text = They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to the king, and begged for their dismissal.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	therefore	therefore	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	decision	decision	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	betook	betake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
9	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	begged	beg	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	dismissal	dismissal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | soldiers *= soldier* |  |  | a decision |  | therefore *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to decision=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **betake** | past |  | soldiers *= soldier* |  | a body |  | to the king | tree rules |
| 3 | **beg** *speech: request* | participle |  |  |  |  |  | for soldiers's dismissal | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V PP.Topic»: agent=Agent for dismissal=Topic |
| 4 | **dismiss** |  | soldiers *= soldier* |  |  |  |  |  | nom dismissal «act transitive»: poss=agent |

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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:** «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.

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