---
title: The man assured her again that he would on no account touch a thing… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The man assured her again that he would on no account touch a thing to eat or drink. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Raven, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Raven, sentence 14

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The man assured her again that he would on no account touch a thing to eat or drink.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** assure, touch, eat, drink · **To what, where:** woman, thing

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Raven. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg2591:47:14
# text = The man assured her again that he would on no account touch a thing to eat or drink.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	assured	assure	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	again	again	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
8	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	11	det	_	_
11	account	account	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
12	touch	touch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **assure** | past | the man |  | woman |  | again |  | vn advise-37.9 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Recipient |
| 2 | **touch** | would | man | a thing |  |  |  | on no account | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP PP.theme PP.instrument»: agent=Agent thing=Experiencer on account=Theme |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* | a thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **drink** | infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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