---
title: The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his white… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his white beard hung down. Who acts: old man, white beard. 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 every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 190

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The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his white beard hung down.

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**Who acts:** old man, white beard · **What happens:** place, want, look on, hang down · **To what, where:** man

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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 (old man, white beard), 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:pg2591:57:190
# text = The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his white beard hung down.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	placed	place	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obj	_	_
6	near	near	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	hung	hang	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
18	down	down	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **place** | past | the old man | man |  |  |  | near *property* | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent himself=Theme |
| 2 | **want** | past | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **look on** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 4 | **hang down** | participle | man's white beard |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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