---
title: Then she cut off the mermaid's tongue, so that she became dumb, and… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Then she cut off the mermaid's tongue, so that she became dumb, and would never again speak or sing. " Who acts: witch. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, 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/pg27200/77/33/)

<!-- 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 Little Mermaid, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/) / 33

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then she cut off the mermaid's tongue, so that she became dumb, and would never again speak or sing. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** witch · **What happens:** cut off, become, speak, sing · **To what, where:** tongue · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (witch), 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:pg27200:77:33
# text = Then she cut off the mermaid's tongue, so that she became dumb, and would never again speak or sing. "
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	cut	cut	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	off	off	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	mermaid	mermaid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	's	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	dumb	dumb	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
18	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	again	again	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	speak	speak	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
21	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	sing	sing	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
24	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut off** | past | witch | the mermaid's tongue |  |  | then |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector tongue=Eventuality |
| 2 | **become** | past | witch |  |  |  |  | dumb *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | would |  |  |  |  | again |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=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.

<!-- 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 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/32/)
- next →: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/34/)
- ↑ back to [The Little Mermaid, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/)