---
title: They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face. Who acts: roadside, cat. 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 8

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They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face.

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**Who acts:** roadside, cat · **What happens:** not go, see, sit, make · **To what, where:** cat, middle, rueful face

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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 (roadside, cat), 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:pg2591:5:8
# text = They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face.
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	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
6	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	acl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	making	make	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	conj	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
21	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	22	advmod	_	_
22	rueful	rueful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	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 | **not** **go** | past · perfect | roadside |  |  |  |  | far *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | past | roadside | a cat |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cat=Stimulus |
| 3 | **sit** | gerund | a cat *not said here* |  |  | the middle of the road |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in middle=Location |
| 4 | **make** | gerund | a cat *not said here* | a rueful face |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset face=Product |

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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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