---
title: Take an axe, and cut off the head of the calf with one blow. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Take an axe, and cut off the head of the calf with one blow. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 2, sentence 106

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Take an axe, and cut off the head of the calf with one blow.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** take, cut off · **To what, where:** axe, head

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, 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), 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:pg641:10:106
# text = Take an axe, and cut off the head of the calf with one blow.
1	Take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	1	advcl	_	_
7	off	off	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	calf	calf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | imperative | you *not said here* | a axe |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent axe=Theme |
| 2 | **cut off** | participle | you *not said here* | the head of the calf with one blow |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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