---
title: Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil with one blow, and in… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil with one blow, and in it caught the old man’s beard. Who acts: youth, anvil. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 191

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Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil with one blow, and in it caught the old man’s beard.

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**Who acts:** youth, anvil · **What happens:** seize, split, catch · **To what, where:** axe, anvil, beard

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youth, anvil), 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:pg2591:57:191
# text = Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil with one blow, and in it caught the old man’s beard.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	split	split	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	anvil	anvil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’s	's	PART	POS	_	21	case	_	_
23	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seize** | past | the youth | the axe |  |  | then |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent axe=Theme |
| 2 | **split** | infinitive | the youth *not said here* | the anvil |  |  |  | with one blow | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent anvil=Patient with blow=Instrument |
| 3 | **catch** | past | anvil | the old man's beard |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent beard=Theme |

<!-- .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:** «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.

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