---
title: The father ordered an axe to be brought, and they cut down the tree,… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: The father ordered an axe to be brought, and they cut down the tree, but found no one upon it. Who acts: father, sons. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Goose, 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/pg11027/15/166/)

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Golden Goose, sentence 166

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The father ordered an axe to be brought, and they cut down the tree, but found no one upon it.

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**Who acts:** father, sons · **What happens:** order, bring, cut down, find · **To what, where:** axe, tree, one

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father, sons), 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:pg11027:15:166
# text = The father ordered an axe to be brought, and they cut down the tree, but found no one upon it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ordered	order	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	brought	bring	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	cut	cut	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
13	down	down	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
19	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	20	det	_	_
20	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **order** | past | the father | a axe |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent axe=Theme |
| 2 | **bring** | to-infinitive · passive | the father *not said here* | a axe *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together» |
| 3 | **cut down** | past | sons *= son* | the tree |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset tree=Product |
| 4 | **find** | past | sons *= son* *not said here* | no one |  |  |  | upon tree | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Topic |

<!-- .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:** «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 11027 (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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