---
title: He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain. — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain. Who acts: spell. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Jorinda and Jorindel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Jorinda and Jorindel, sentence 35

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He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain.

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**Who acts:** spell · **What happens:** pray, weep, sorrow

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Jorinda and Jorindel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spell), 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:pg2591:4:35
# text = He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	prayed	pray	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	wept	weep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	sorrowed	sorrow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	conj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pray** | past | spell |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **weep** | past | spell |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **sorrow** | past | spell |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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