---
title: As they sat at the feast, each guest in turn was asked to tell a tal… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: As they sat at the feast, each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale; the bride sat still and did not say a word. Who acts: bridegroom, guest, bride. 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 53

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As they sat at the feast, each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale; the bride sat still and did not say a word.

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**Who acts:** bridegroom, guest, bride · **What happens:** sit, ask, tell, not say · **To what, where:** feast, guest, turn, tale, word · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (bridegroom, guest, bride), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2591:979`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2591:24:53
# text = As they sat at the feast, each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale; the bride sat still and did not say a word.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	feast	feast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	det	_	_
9	guest	guest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	turn	turn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	asked	ask	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	bride	bride	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	_
22	still	still	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
25	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
26	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	conj	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | bridegroom |  |  | the feast |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at feast=Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past · passive |  | each guest |  | turn |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | each guest *not said here* | a tale |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent tale=Recipient |
| 4 | **sit** | past | the bride |  |  |  | still |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | the bride *not said here* | a word |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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