---
title: He took her at her word, and sat himself down to the wheel, and whis… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He took her at her word, and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang: Who acts: necklace, maiden. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Tom Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Tom Thumb, sentence 117

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He took her at her word, and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang:

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**Who acts:** necklace, maiden · **What happens:** take, sit down, whistle, sing, word · **To what, where:** maiden, word, necklace

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Tom Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (necklace, maiden), 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:pg2591:25:117
# text = He took her at her word, and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang:
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obj	_	_
11	down	down	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	wheel	wheel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	whistled	whistle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | necklace | maiden |  | maiden's word |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent she=Theme at word=Asset |
| 2 | **sit down** | past | necklace *not said here* | necklace |  |  |  | to the wheel | tree rules |
| 3 | **whistle** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **word** |  | maiden |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication 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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