---
title: Then taking up an axe he cut through the anvil at one blow down to t… — Grimm's Fairy Stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Then taking up an axe he cut through the anvil at one blow down to the ground. " Who acts: man. A sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Oh, If I Could But Shiver!, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimm's Fairy Stories, Oh, If I Could But Shiver!, sentence 155

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Then taking up an axe he cut through the anvil at one blow down to the ground. "

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** take up, cut · **To what, where:** axe, anvil

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This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Oh, If I Could But Shiver!. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg11027:9:155
# text = Then taking up an axe he cut through the anvil at one blow down to the ground. "
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
2	taking	take	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
3	up	up	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	cut	cut	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	through	through	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	anvil	anvil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
14	down	down	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take up** | gerund |  | a axe |  | the anvil | then | at one blow; down *property* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent axe=Theme at blow=Asset |
| 2 | **cut** | past | man | a axe *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent axe=Product |

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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:** «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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