---
title: They heard the strokes of the axe, so they thought their father was… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They heard the strokes of the axe, so they thought their father was quite near. Who acts: Hansel, father. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 31

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They heard the strokes of the axe, so they thought their father was quite near.

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**Who acts:** Hansel, father · **What happens:** hear, think, be, stroke · **To what, where:** strokes, axe · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hansel, father), 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:pg503:35:31
# text = They heard the strokes of the axe, so they thought their father was quite near.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	strokes	stroke	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	near	near	ADV	RB	_	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | Hansel | the strokes of the axe |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer stroke=Stimulus |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Hansel |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | Hansel's father |  |  |  |  | near *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **stroke** |  |  | the axe |  |  |  |  | nom stroke «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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:** «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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