---
title: By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and watching it. — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and watching it. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Iron Hans, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Iron Hans, sentence 45

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By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and watching it.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** sit, watch · **To what, where:** care

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Iron Hans. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg2591:59:45
# text = By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and watching it.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	daybreak	daybreak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	already	already	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
8	by	by	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	well	well	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	conj	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | the boy |  |  |  |  | by daybreak; by the well | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent by daybreak=Location |
| 2 | **watch** | gerund | the boy *not said here* | care |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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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