---
title: ‘The old woman has destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘The old woman has destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at once, and took their lives. Who acts: old woman, woman. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean, sentence 8

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‘The old woman has destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at once, and took their lives.

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**Who acts:** old woman, woman · **What happens:** destroy, seize, take · **To what, where:** brethren, fire, sixty, lives

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old woman, woman), 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:pg2591:7:8
# text = ‘The old woman has destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at once, and took their lives.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	destroyed	destroy	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	9	det:predet	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	brethren	brethren	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	smoke	smoke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
17	sixty	sixty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	_
20	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
25	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **destroy** | present · perfect | the old woman | my brethren |  | fire and smoke |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brethren=Patient |
| 2 | **seize** | past | woman | sixty of brethren |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sixty=Theme |
| 3 | **take** | past | woman *not said here* | brethren's lives |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=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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