---
title: “What is to hinder anyone from cutting off that chain and digging ou… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What is to hinder anyone from cutting off that chain and digging out those carbuncles, and making himself rich for life?” A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 1, sentence 22

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“What is to hinder anyone from cutting off that chain and digging out those carbuncles, and making himself rich for life?”

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**What happens:** be, cut off, dig out, make · **To what, where:** anyone, chain, carbuncles, two · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg503:23:22
# text = “What is to hinder anyone from cutting off that chain and digging out those carbuncles, and making himself rich for life?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
5	hinder	hind	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	amod	_	_
6	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	0	root	_	_
7	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
8	cutting	cut	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
9	off	off	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
11	chain	chain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	digging	dig	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	_
14	out	out	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	_
15	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	carbuncles	carbuncle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	making	make	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	csubj	_	_
20	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	19	obj	_	_
21	rich	rich	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | anyone |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cut off** *in a quote* | gerund |  | that chain |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector chain=Eventuality |
| 3 | **dig out** *in a quote* | gerund |  | that carbuncles |  |  |  |  | vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent carbuncle=Theme |
| 4 | **make** *in a quote* | gerund |  | two |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset himself=Product |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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