---
title: Then take down the sword gently, and quickly give the monster a blow… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then take down the sword gently, and quickly give the monster a blow on his tail with it. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 4, sentence 15

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Then take down the sword gently, and quickly give the monster a blow on his tail with it.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** take down, give · **To what, where:** sword, blow, monster

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 4. 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:pg640:13:15
# text = Then take down the sword gently, and quickly give the monster a blow on his tail with it.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
2	take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	down	down	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	give	give	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	monster	monster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take down** | imperative | you *not said here* | the sword |  |  | then | gently *property* | vn scribble-25.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sword=Theme |
| 2 | **give** | infinitive | you *not said here* | a blow | the monster |  |  | with sword; quickly *property* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent monster=Recipient blow=Theme |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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