---
title: But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught their cloth… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught their clothes. Who acts: sons, fire. 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 69

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But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught their clothes.

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**Who acts:** sons, fire · **What happens:** sit, not stir, catch · **To what, where:** clothes

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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 (sons, fire), 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:pg2591:57:69
# text = But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught their clothes.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	stir	stir	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	clothes	clothes	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | sons *= son* |  |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **stir** | past · do-support | sons *= son* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **catch** | past | the fire | sons's clothes |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent clothes=Theme |

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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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