---
title: When the smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When the smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood before him, and said: ‘Lord, what are your commands?’ Who acts: little black dwarf, Lord. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Blue Light, 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/pg2591/46/24/)

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Blue Light, sentence 24

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When the smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood before him, and said: ‘Lord, what are your commands?’

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**Who acts:** little black dwarf, Lord · **What happens:** circle, stand, say, be · **To what, where:** smoke, commands · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Blue Light. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little black dwarf, Lord), 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:pg2591:46:24
# text = When the smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood before him, and said: ‘Lord, what are your commands?’
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	5	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	smoke	smoke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	circled	circle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	about	about	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	cavern	cavern	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	dwarf	dwarf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
16	before	before	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
22	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	Lord	Lord	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
25	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	28	nsubj	_	_
26	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
27	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	commands	command	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **circle** | past · perfect · passive |  | the smoke |  |  |  | about the cavern | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: subject=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **stand** | past | a little black dwarf |  |  |  | before soldier | suddenly *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=Location |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a little black dwarf *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | present | Lord and your commands | your commands |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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