---
title: Cutting a log or a ribbon into pieces always takes one cut fewer tha… — Cuts and pieces · tree and pragmatics
description: Cutting a log or a ribbon into pieces always takes one cut fewer than the number of pieces: the last piece needs no cut. Who acts: Cutting, last piece. A sentence of the lesson «Cuts and pieces» of the lessons course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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# Cuts and pieces, sentence 0

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Cutting a log or a ribbon into pieces always takes one cut fewer than the number of pieces: the last piece needs no cut.

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**Who acts:** Cutting, last piece · **What happens:** cut, take, need · **To what, where:** log, pieces, one cut, cut

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Cuts and pieces» of the lessons course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cutting, last piece), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:lessons:185-cuts-and-pieces.lesson:0
# text = Cutting a log or a ribbon into pieces always takes one cut fewer than the number of pieces: the last piece needs no cut.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = lessons
# lesson = 185-cuts-and-pieces.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Cutting	cut	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	csubj	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	log	log	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
4	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	ribbon	ribbon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
7	into	into	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obl	_	_
9	always	always	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	takes	take	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	cut	cut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=13:obl:unmarked
13	fewer	few	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	obj	_	_
14	than	than	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
19	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
23	needs	need	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=10:conj
24	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	25	det	_	_
25	cut	cut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut** | gerund |  | a log or a ribbon |  | pieces |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP.material PP.product»: agent=Agent log=Material into piece=Product |
| 2 | **take** | present | Cutting | one cut |  |  |  | always *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument cut=Theme few=Destination |
| 3 | **need** | present | the last piece | no cut |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot cut=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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**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:lessons:185-cuts-and-pieces.lesson:0`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

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- ← previous: [Two-digit numbers with a given digit sum, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/lessons/184-digit-sum-count/3/)
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