---
title: “Take this sword,” she said, “and cut off my head!” — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Take this sword,” she said, “and cut off my head!” Who acts: Cat. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 2, sentence 49

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“Take this sword,” she said, “and cut off my head!”

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**Who acts:** Cat · **What happens:** take, say, cut off · **To what, where:** sword, head · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, 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 (Cat), 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:pg503:24:49
# text = “Take this sword,” she said, “and cut off my head!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
3	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	ccomp	_	_
13	off	off	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | this sword |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sword=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: express* | past | Cat |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **cut off** *in a quote* | participle |  | my head |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=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 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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