---
title: When he wishes to eat, take your knife and cut pieces of the meat an… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When he wishes to eat, take your knife and cut pieces of the meat and set them before him with a bow. Who acts: prince, you. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, 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/pg3282/3/110/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/3/) / 110

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 3, sentence 110

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When he wishes to eat, take your knife and cut pieces of the meat and set them before him with a bow.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prince, you · **What happens:** wish, eat, take, cut, set · **To what, where:** knife, pieces

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, 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 (prince, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3282:262`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3282:3:110
# text = When he wishes to eat, take your knife and cut pieces of the meat and set them before him with a bow.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	wishes	wish	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	cut	cut	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
12	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	set	set	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	before	before	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	bow	bow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wish** | present | prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **eat** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **take** | imperative | you *not said here* | your knife |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knife=Theme |
| 4 | **cut** | infinitive | you *not said here* | pieces of the meat |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset piece=Product |
| 5 | **set** | infinitive | you *not said here* | pieces *= piece* |  |  | before prince | with a bow | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent they=Theme before he=Destination |

<!-- .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:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 109](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/3/109/)
- next →: [sentence 111](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/3/111/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/3/)