---
title: They had been unable to decide whether they would keep together and… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They had been unable to decide whether they would keep together and have the things in common, or whether they would separate. Who acts: horses. 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 79

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They had been unable to decide whether they would keep together and have the things in common, or whether they would separate.

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**Who acts:** horses · **What happens:** be, decide, keep together, have, separate · **To what, where:** things, common · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (horses), 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:pg2591:47:79
# text = They had been unable to decide whether they would keep together and have the things in common, or whether they would separate.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	cop	_	_
4	unable	unable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	decide	decide	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
11	together	together	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	common	common	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	separate	separate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past · perfect | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  | unable *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **decide** | to-infinitive | horses *= horse* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **keep together** | would | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **have** | present | horses *= horse* *not said here* | the things |  | common |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Patient |
| 5 | **separate** | would | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  |  | vn separate-23.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=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.

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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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