---
title: He will strike you down before you can cry for mercy." — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He will strike you down before you can cry for mercy." Who acts: angel, you. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Buckwheat, 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/pg27200/14/19/)

<!-- 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/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Buckwheat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/14/) / 19

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Buckwheat, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He will strike you down before you can cry for mercy."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** angel, you · **What happens:** strike down, cry · **To what, where:** you

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Buckwheat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (angel, you), 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:pg27200:14:19
# text = He will strike you down before you can cry for mercy."
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	strike	strike	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
6	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	mercy	mercy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **strike down** | future | angel | you |  |  |  |  | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent you=Instrument |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | can | you |  |  |  |  | for mercy | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient S\_INF»: agent=Agent for mercy=Recipient |

<!-- .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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/14/18/)
- next →: [sentence 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/14/20/)
- ↑ back to [The Buckwheat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/14/)