---
title: He could not have cut down the tree, for he has neither axe nor knife. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He could not have cut down the tree, for he has neither axe nor knife. Who acts: fox. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, 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/pg2435/24/79/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 79

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He could not have cut down the tree, for he has neither axe nor knife.

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**Who acts:** fox · **What happens:** not cut down, have · **To what, where:** tree, axe

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox), 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:pg2435:24:79
# text = He could not have cut down the tree, for he has neither axe nor knife.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	down	down	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	neither	neither	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
14	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	16	cc	_	_
16	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **cut down** | could · perfect | fox | the tree |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tree=Product |
| 2 | **have** | present | fox | neither axe nor knife |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent axe=Patient |

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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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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