---
title: The people about court did not at all know what use they could make… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The people about court did not at all know what use they could make of him, but they liked him, and told him to stay. Who acts: people. 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 65

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The people about court did not at all know what use they could make of him, but they liked him, and told him to stay.

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**Who acts:** people · **What happens:** not know, make, like, tell, stay · **To what, where:** use, son · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (people), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2591:2502`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2591:59:65
# text = The people about court did not at all know what use they could make of him, but they liked him, and told him to stay.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
3	about	about	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	advmod	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	fixed	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	11	det	_	_
11	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	liked	like	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	_
25	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	stay	stay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	xcomp	_	_
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | the people about court |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **make** | could | people | what use |  |  |  | of son | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset use=Product |
| 3 | **like** | past | people | son |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot he=Theme |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | people *not said here* |  | son |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 5 | **stay** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | people *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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