---
title: When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had happened. — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had happened. Who acts: Catherine. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Frederick and Catherine, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Frederick and Catherine, sentence 16

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When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had happened.

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**Who acts:** Catherine · **What happens:** get, see, happen · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Frederick and Catherine. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Catherine), 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:pg2591:29:16
# text = When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had happened.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	cellar	cellar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	stairs	stair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | Catherine |  |  |  |  | to the cellar stairs *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to stair=Result |
| 2 | **see** | past | Catherine |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «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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