---
title: Then the fox came, and said, ‘Pray kill me, and cut off my head and… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the fox came, and said, ‘Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my feet.’ Who acts: fox, Pray. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Bird, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/2/59/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Grimms' Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/) / [The Golden Bird](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/2/) / 59

# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Golden Bird, sentence 59

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then the fox came, and said, ‘Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my feet.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** fox, Pray · **What happens:** come, say, kill, cut off · **To what, where:** me, head · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Bird. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox, Pray), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2591:2:59
# text = Then the fox came, and said, ‘Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my feet.’
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Pray	Pray	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	_
16	off	off	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the fox |  |  |  | then |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the fox *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **kill** | infinitive | Pray | me |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |
| 4 | **cut off** | participle |  | my head and my feet |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/2/58/)
- next →: [sentence 60](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/2/60/)
- ↑ back to [The Golden Bird](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/2/)