---
title: They could not, however, reach the great city the first day; so when… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They could not, however, reach the great city the first day; so when night came on, they went into a wood to sleep. Who acts: guests, night. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Travelling Musicians, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Travelling Musicians, sentence 22

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They could not, however, reach the great city the first day; so when night came on, they went into a wood to sleep.

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**Who acts:** guests, night · **What happens:** not reach, come on, go, sleep · **To what, where:** great city, wood

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Travelling Musicians. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (guests, night), 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:pg2591:5:22
# text = They could not, however, reach the great city the first day; so when night came on, they went into a wood to sleep.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	however	however	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	13	amod	_	_
13	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
16	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
17	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
19	on	on	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
23	into	into	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	sleep	sleep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **reach** | could | guests *= guest* | the great city |  |  | day | however *property* | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent city=Theme |
| 2 | **come on** | past | night |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **go** | past | guests *= guest* |  |  | a wood |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into wood=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **sleep** | to-infinitive | guests *= guest* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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