---
title: Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking ou… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking outside. Who acts: things, knocking. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Little Peasant, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Little Peasant, sentence 24

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Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking outside.

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**Who acts:** things, knocking · **What happens:** sit down, eat, be

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Little Peasant. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (things, knocking), 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:pg2591:28:24
# text = Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking outside.
1	Just	just	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	about	about	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	down	down	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	eat	eat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	13	expl	_	_
13	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	knocking	knocking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
16	outside	outside	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | things *= thing* |  |  |  |  | about *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **eat** | present | things *= thing* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **be** | past | a knocking |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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