---
title: When they were black in the face he slid down the rope and stabbed t… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When they were black in the face he slid down the rope and stabbed them to the heart. Who acts: giants, Jack. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Jack the Giant-killer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The History of Jack the Giant-killer, sentence 16

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When they were black in the face he slid down the rope and stabbed them to the heart.

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**Who acts:** giants, Jack · **What happens:** be, slide down, stab · **To what, where:** face, rope, giants

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Jack the Giant-killer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (giants, Jack), 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:pg503:54:16
# text = When they were black in the face he slid down the rope and stabbed them to the heart.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	slid	slide	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	down	down	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	rope	rope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	stabbed	stab	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | giants *= giant* |  |  | the face |  | black *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **slide down** | past | Jack | the rope |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rope=Agent |
| 3 | **stab** | past | Jack *not said here* | giants *= giant* |  |  |  | to the heart *result* | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent they=Patient to heart=Result |

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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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