---
title: But no sooner had he struck the first blow with his axe than it brok… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But no sooner had he struck the first blow with his axe than it broke into a thousand pieces against the tree. Who acts: Prince, AXE. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Glass Mountain(16), part 4, sentence 56

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But no sooner had he struck the first blow with his axe than it broke into a thousand pieces against the tree.

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**Who acts:** Prince, AXE · **What happens:** have, strike, break · **To what, where:** first blow, thousand pieces

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), 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 (Prince, AXE), 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:pg640:25:56
# text = But no sooner had he struck the first blow with his axe than it broke into a thousand pieces against the tree.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
4	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	9	amod	_	_
9	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
16	into	into	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
19	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
20	against	against	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past |  |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **strike** | past | Prince | the first blow |  |  |  | with Prince's axe | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent blow=Patient with axe=Instrument |
| 3 | **break** | past | AXE |  |  |  |  | into thousand pieces against the tree *result* | vn break-45.1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Patient into piece=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 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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