---
title: They dared not to go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listen… — The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault · tree and pragmatics
description: They dared not to go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what their father and mother were saying. Who acts: brothers, father. A sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/14/48/)

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# The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"\], sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They dared not to go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what their father and mother were saying.

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**Who acts:** brothers, father · **What happens:** dare, not go in, sit down, listen, say · **To what, where:** brothers, door · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, father), 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:pg29021:14:48
# text = They dared not to go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what their father and mother were saying.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	dared	dare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
6	in	in	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obj	_	_
11	down	down	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	listening	listen	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	obl	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	_
23	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dare** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **go in** | to-infinitive | brothers *= brother* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **sit down** | past | brothers *= brother* *not said here* | brothers *= brother* |  | the door |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **listen** | gerund | brothers *= brother* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to what=Theme |
| 5 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · progressive | brothers's father and mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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:** «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Project Gutenberg book 29021 (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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