---
title: ‘But just cut a hole in the corn sacks, and then they will be so bus… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But just cut a hole in the corn sacks, and then they will be so busy with the corn that they will forget us.’ Who acts: you, birds. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Dwarfs, part 2, sentence 67

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‘But just cut a hole in the corn sacks, and then they will be so busy with the corn that they will forget us.’

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**Who acts:** you, birds · **What happens:** cut, be, forget · **To what, where:** hole, corn sacks, us

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, 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 (you, birds), 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:pg540:38:67
# text = ‘But just cut a hole in the corn sacks, and then they will be so busy with the corn that they will forget us.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
3	just	just	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	cut	cut	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	corn	corn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	sacks	sack	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
13	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	18	advmod	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
15	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	cop	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	corn	corn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
23	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
24	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	forget	forget	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
26	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut** | imperative | you *not said here* | a hole |  | the corn sacks |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset hole=Product |
| 2 | **is** | future | birds *= bird* |  |  |  | then | with the corn; busy *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **forget** | future | birds *= bird* | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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