---
title: At this the thieves were frightened, and said, ‘Softly, softly! — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: At this the thieves were frightened, and said, ‘Softly, softly! 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/25/53/)

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Tom Thumb, sentence 53

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At this the thieves were frightened, and said, ‘Softly, softly!

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**What happens:** frighten, say · **To what, where:** thieves · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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: 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:pg2591:25:53
# text = At this the thieves were frightened, and said, ‘Softly, softly!
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	thieves	thief	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	frightened	frighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Softly	softly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	softly	softly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **frighten** | past · passive |  | the thieves |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  | softly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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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