---
title: The Wolf pulled the branches down, bit the cord in two, and set the… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Wolf pulled the branches down, bit the cord in two, and set the Fox free. Who acts: Wolf. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Marvellous Musician, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Marvellous Musician, sentence 58

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The Wolf pulled the branches down, bit the cord in two, and set the Fox free.

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**Who acts:** Wolf · **What happens:** pull down, bite, set · **To what, where:** branches, cord, two, Fox

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Marvellous Musician. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Wolf), 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:pg540:50:58
# text = The Wolf pulled the branches down, bit the cord in two, and set the Fox free.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Wolf	Wolf	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	pulled	pull	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	bit	bite	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	cord	cord	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	set	set	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pull down** | past | the Wolf | the branches |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent branch=Theme |
| 2 | **bite** | past |  | the cord |  | two |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent cord=Patient in two=Location |
| 3 | **set** | infinitive | the Wolf *not said here* | the Fox |  |  |  | free *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient fox=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 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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