---
title: Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell to the ground and broke. Who acts: trembling hands, bowl. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Old Man and His Grandson, 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/pg2591/27/4/)

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Old Man and His Grandson, sentence 4

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Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell to the ground and broke.

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**Who acts:** trembling hands, bowl · **What happens:** tremble, not hold, fall, break · **To what, where:** bowl

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Old Man and His Grandson. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (trembling hands, bowl), 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:pg2591:27:4
# text = Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell to the ground and broke.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	too	too	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
6	trembling	tremble	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	amod	_	_
7	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bowl	bowl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tremble** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **hold** | could | grandfather's trembling hands | the bowl |  |  |  | once *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bowl=Theme |
| 3 | **fall** | past | bowl |  |  |  |  | to the ground | vn acquiesce-95.1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to ground=Theme |
| 4 | **break** | past | bowl *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: 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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