---
title: When Wednesday had sharpened his sabre he came into the room and beg… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When Wednesday had sharpened his sabre he came into the room and began feeling for the stiff collars of the bridegrooms' night-dresses, and straightway cut off the forty heads above the collars. Who acts: Wednesday, foal, straightway. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Magic Egg
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Magic Egg, sentence 164

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When Wednesday had sharpened his sabre he came into the room and began feeling for the stiff collars of the bridegrooms' night-dresses, and straightway cut off the forty heads above the collars.

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**Who acts:** Wednesday, foal, straightway · **What happens:** sharpen, come, begin, feel, cut off · **To what, where:** sabre, straightway, room, forty heads, collars

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Magic Egg. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Wednesday, foal, straightway), 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:pg29672:24:164
# text = When Wednesday had sharpened his sabre he came into the room and began feeling for the stiff collars of the bridegrooms' night-dresses, and straightway cut off the forty heads above the collars.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	Wednesday	Wednesday	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	sharpened	sharpen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	sabre	sabre	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	into	into	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
14	feeling	feel	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	xcomp	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	stiff	stiff	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	collars	collar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	bridegrooms	bridegroom	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	'	's	PART	POS	_	21	case	_	_
23	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	dresses	dress	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	straightway	straightway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
29	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	28	acl	_	_
30	off	off	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	forty	forty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	33	nummod	_	_
33	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	obl	_	_
34	above	above	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	collars	collar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sharpen** | past · perfect | Wednesday | foal's sabre |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent sabre=Patient |
| 2 | **come** | past | foal | straightway |  | the room |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into room=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **begin** | past | foal *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **feel** | gerund | foal *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for the stiff collars of the bridegrooms's night dresses | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for collar=Theme |
| 5 | **cut off** | participle | straightway *not said here* | the forty heads |  | the collars |  |  | 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.

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**Text:** «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», Project Gutenberg book 29672 (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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