---
title: The slaughterer said he would do as she desired, chopped off the hea… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The slaughterer said he would do as she desired, chopped off the head, and nailed it firmly over the gateway. Who acts: slaughterer, Falada, gate. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Goose-girl, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Goose-girl, sentence 39

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The slaughterer said he would do as she desired, chopped off the head, and nailed it firmly over the gateway.

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**Who acts:** slaughterer, Falada, gate · **What happens:** say, do, desire, chop off, nail · **To what, where:** head, slaughterer, gateway · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Goose-girl. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (slaughterer, Falada, gate), 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:pg503:37:39
# text = The slaughterer said he would do as she desired, chopped off the head, and nailed it firmly over the gateway.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	slaughterer	slaughterer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	desired	desire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	chopped	chop	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	conj	_	_
12	off	off	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	nailed	nail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	firmly	firmly	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
20	over	over	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	gateway	gateway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the slaughterer |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** | would | Falada |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **desire** | past | gate |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **chop off** | participle | gate *not said here* | the head |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 5 | **nail** | past | the slaughterer *not said here* | slaughterer |  | the gateway |  | firmly *property* | vn tape-22.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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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