---
title: They told him that their father was very ill, and that they were afr… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They told him that their father was very ill, and that they were afraid nothing could save him. Who acts: sons, father, nothing. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/49/4/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Grimms' Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/) / [The Water of Life](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/49/) / 4

# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Water of Life, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They told him that their father was very ill, and that they were afraid nothing could save him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sons, father, nothing · **What happens:** tell, be, save · **To what, where:** king · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sons, father, nothing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2591:49:4
# text = They told him that their father was very ill, and that they were afraid nothing could save him.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	advcl	_	_
16	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	18	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | sons *= son* |  | king |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 2 | **is** | past | sons's father |  |  |  |  | ill *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | sons *= son* |  |  |  |  | afraid *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **save** | could | nothing | king |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/49/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/49/5/)
- ↑ back to [The Water of Life](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/49/)