---
title: The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out,… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it was caught too fast. Who acts: children. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Snow-white and Rose-red, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Snow-white and Rose-red, sentence 54

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The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it was caught too fast.

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**Who acts:** children · **What happens:** try, not pull out, catch · **To what, where:** beard

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Snow-white and Rose-red. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children), 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:pg2591:60:54
# text = The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it was caught too fast.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	hard	hard	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	pull	pull	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	out	out	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	conj	_	_
19	too	too	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | the children |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **not** **pull out** | could | children *= child* | the beard |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **catch** | past · passive |  | beard |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: subject=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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