---
title: The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might think he was a ghost. Who acts: sexton, boy. 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 26

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The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might think he was a ghost.

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**Who acts:** sexton, boy · **What happens:** remain, stand, think, be · **To what, where:** ghost · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (sexton, boy), 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:pg2591:57:26
# text = The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might think he was a ghost.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sexton	sexton	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	however	however	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	remained	remain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	xcomp	_	_
8	motionless	motionless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	ghost	ghost	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **remain** | past | the sexton |  |  |  |  | however *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **stand** | gerund | the sexton *not said here* |  |  |  |  | motionless *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | might | the boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | past | boy | a ghost |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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