---
title: ‘Break off one of my branches, and strike the hearth with it crosswi… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Break off one of my branches, and strike the hearth with it crosswise, and all will be put right.’ Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Wonderful Birch, sentence 39

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‘Break off one of my branches, and strike the hearth with it crosswise, and all will be put right.’

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** break off, strike, put · **To what, where:** one, hearth, all

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg540:14:39
# text = ‘Break off one of my branches, and strike the hearth with it crosswise, and all will be put right.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Break	break	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	off	off	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	obj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	strike	strike	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	hearth	hearth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nmod	_	_
15	crosswise	crosswise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	put	put	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	parataxis	_	_
22	right	right	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break off** | imperative | you *not said here* | one of my branches |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer one=Patient |
| 2 | **strike** | infinitive | you *not said here* | the hearth |  |  |  | with hearth; crosswise *property* | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent hearth=Patient with it=Instrument |
| 3 | **put** | future · passive |  | all |  |  |  | right *property* | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: subject=Goal |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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