---
title: Men have a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Men have a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir, but girls trip and skip, and drag their feet, and the peas roll about.’ Who acts: Men, none, girls, peas. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Twelve Huntsmen, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ever
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Twelve Huntsmen, sentence 25

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Men have a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir, but girls trip and skip, and drag their feet, and the peas roll about.’

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**Who acts:** Men, none, girls, peas · **What happens:** have, walk over, stir, trip, skip, drag · **To what, where:** firm step, peas, feet

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Twelve Huntsmen. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Men, none, girls, peas), 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:pg2591:50:25
# text = Men have a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir, but girls trip and skip, and drag their feet, and the peas roll about.’
1	Men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	firm	firm	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	step	step	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	10	mark	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	walk	walk	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	over	over	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	peas	pea	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
13	none	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	16	nsubj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nmod	_	_
16	stir	stir	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
20	trip	trip	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	skip	skip	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	drag	drag	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
26	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	peas	pea	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nsubj	_	_
32	roll	roll	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
33	about	about	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | Men | a firm step |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent step=Patient |
| 2 | **walk over** | present | Men *= man* | peas |  |  |  | over *property* | vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **stir** | present | none | peas *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus pea=Experiencer |
| 4 | **trip** | present | girls |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **skip** | present | girls *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **drag** | present | Men *not said here* | peas's feet |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent foot=Theme |
| 7 | **roll about** | present | the peas |  |  |  |  | about *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=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.

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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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