---
title: Cut off these twigs and strike their roots with them, and the iron d… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Cut off these twigs and strike their roots with them, and the iron door of a cellar will open. Who acts: you, iron door. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 46

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Cut off these twigs and strike their roots with them, and the iron door of a cellar will open.

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**Who acts:** you, iron door · **What happens:** cut off, strike, open · **To what, where:** twigs, roots

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, iron door), 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:pg2435:9:46
# text = Cut off these twigs and strike their roots with them, and the iron door of a cellar will open.
1	Cut	cut	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	off	off	ADP	RP	_	1	compound:prt	_	_
3	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	twigs	twig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	strike	strike	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	roots	root	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	iron	iron	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	cellar	cellar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
19	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	open	open	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut off** | imperative | you *not said here* | this twigs |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector twig=Eventuality |
| 2 | **strike** | present | you *not said here* | twigs's roots |  |  |  | with twigs *= twig* | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent root=Patient with they=Instrument |
| 3 | **open** | future | the iron door of a cellar |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=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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**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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