---
title: They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right,… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right, wherever his legs took him. Who acts: legs. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Golden Goose, sentence 32

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They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right, wherever his legs took him.

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**Who acts:** legs · **What happens:** oblige, run, leave, take · **To what, where:** others, Dummling

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (legs), 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:pg2591:48:32
# text = They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right, wherever his legs took him.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	obliged	oblige	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	after	after	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
8	continually	continually	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	_
11	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	_
14	right	right	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	wherever	wherever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
19	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **oblige** | past · passive |  | others *= other* |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Patient clause=Result |
| 2 | **run** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  | after Dummling | continually *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **leave** | participle |  |  |  |  | now |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **take** | past | Dummling's legs |  | Dummling |  |  | wherever *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument he=Destination |

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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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