---
title: The fact was, he could not refuse the request, on account of the dwa… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The fact was, he could not refuse the request, on account of the dwarf’s third gift. Who acts: fact. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Miser in the Bush, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/33/39/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Grimms' Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/) / [The Miser in the Bush](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/33/) / 39

# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Miser in the Bush, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The fact was, he could not refuse the request, on account of the dwarf’s third gift.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** fact · **What happens:** not refuse, account · **To what, where:** request, dwarf

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Miser in the Bush. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fact), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2591:33:39
# text = The fact was, he could not refuse the request, on account of the dwarf’s third gift.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	fact	fact	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	refuse	refuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	request	request	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	account	account	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	dwarf	dwarf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
18	third	third	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	19	amod	_	_
19	gift	gift	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **refuse** | could | the fact | the request |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent request=Theme |
| 2 | **account** |  |  | the dwarf |  |  |  |  | nom account «communication transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/33/38/)
- next →: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/33/40/)
- ↑ back to [The Miser in the Bush](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/33/)