---
title: Your mistress cuts off men’s heads because of this riddle; what is a… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Your mistress cuts off men’s heads because of this riddle; what is at the bottom of it, and why does she do it?” Who acts: mistress, rose. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 78

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Your mistress cuts off men’s heads because of this riddle; what is at the bottom of it, and why does she do it?”

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**Who acts:** mistress, rose · **What happens:** cut off, be, do · **To what, where:** heads, bottom, mistress

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mistress, rose), 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:pg3282:2:78
# text = Your mistress cuts off men’s heads because of this riddle; what is at the bottom of it, and why does she do it?”
1	Your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mistress	mistress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	cuts	cut	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	off	off	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’s	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
8	because	because	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	11	case	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	fixed	_	_
10	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
11	riddle	riddle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
22	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
23	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
26	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	25	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut off** | present | Your mistress | men's heads |  |  |  | because this riddle | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |
| 2 | **is** | present |  |  |  | the bottom |  | of mistress | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | present · do-support | rose | mistress |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |

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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:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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