---
title: They placed the coffin on the ground, but he went to it and took the… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They placed the coffin on the ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay therein. Who acts: fingers, man, dead man. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 165

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They placed the coffin on the ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay therein.

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**Who acts:** fingers, man, dead man · **What happens:** place, go, take off, lie · **To what, where:** coffin, ground, lid

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fingers, man, dead man), 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:pg2591:57:165
# text = They placed the coffin on the ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay therein.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	placed	place	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	coffin	coffin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	lid	lid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	off	off	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
24	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
25	therein	therein	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **place** | past | fingers *= finger* | the coffin |  | the ground |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent coffin=Theme on ground=Destination |
| 2 | **go** | past | man |  |  | coffin |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to it=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **take off** | past | man *not said here* | the lid |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lid=Theme |
| 4 | **lie** | past | a dead man |  |  |  |  | therein *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «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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