---
title: The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and to… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told his sister to sit by him. Who acts: duck, Hansel. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Hansel and Gretel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Hansel and Gretel, sentence 129

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The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told his sister to sit by him.

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**Who acts:** duck, Hansel · **What happens:** come, seat, tell, sit · **To what, where:** planks, Gretel, back, sister · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Hansel and Gretel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (duck, Hansel), 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:pg2591:20:129
# text = The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told his sister to sit by him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	Hansel	Hansel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	seated	seat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obj	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	iobj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
21	by	by	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the duck |  | planks *= plank* |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to they=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **seat** | past | Hansel | Gretel |  | back's back |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP.location V NP»: agent=Location himself=Value |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the duck *not said here* |  | Gretel's sister |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent sister=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **sit** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the duck *not said here* |  |  |  |  | by Gretel | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent by he=Location |

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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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