---
title: She tried to excuse herself by saying that she would not be able to… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: She tried to excuse herself by saying that she would not be able to find the way thither. Who acts: miller. 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 9

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She tried to excuse herself by saying that she would not be able to find the way thither.

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**Who acts:** miller · **What happens:** try, excuse, say, not be, find · **To what, where:** miller, way · **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 (miller), 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:pg2591:24:9
# text = She tried to excuse herself by saying that she would not be able to find the way thither.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	excuse	excuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obj	_	_
6	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
13	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	ccomp	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	thither	thither	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | miller |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **excuse** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | miller *not said here* | miller |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent herself=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | miller *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **is** | would | miller |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **find** | to-infinitive | miller *not said here* | the way |  |  |  | thither *property* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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