---
title: At last she came to the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: At last she came to the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head from shaking. Who acts: girl, old woman. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Robber Bridegroom, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Robber Bridegroom, sentence 22

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At last she came to the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head from shaking.

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**Who acts:** girl, old woman · **What happens:** come, sit, not keep, shake · **To what, where:** last, old woman, head

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Robber Bridegroom. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girl, old woman), 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:pg2591:24:22
# text = At last she came to the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head from shaking.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	obl	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cellar	cellar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	_
11	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
15	very	very	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	conj	_	_
23	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
26	shaking	shake	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | girl |  |  | last |  | to the cellar | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to cellar=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **sit** | past | girl *not said here* | a old woman |  | there |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location woman=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **keep** | could | a old woman | girl's head |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Theme |
| 4 | **shake** | gerund | a old woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=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:** «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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