---
title: They used to take their little knives there and cut the fruits and e… — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They used to take their little knives there and cut the fruits and eat them. Who acts: fruits. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 5, sentence 141

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They used to take their little knives there and cut the fruits and eat them.

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**Who acts:** fruits · **What happens:** use, take, cut, eat · **To what, where:** little knives, fruits

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fruits), 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:pg7128:11:141
# text = They used to take their little knives there and cut the fruits and eat them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	knives	knife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
8	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	cut	cut	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	fruits	fruit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	eat	eat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | past | fruits *= fruit* |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **take** | to-infinitive | fruits *= fruit* *not said here* | fruits's little knives |  | there |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knife=Theme |
| 3 | **cut** | past | fruits *= fruit* *not said here* | the fruits |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset fruit=Product |
| 4 | **eat** | present | fruits *= fruit* *not said here* | fruits *= fruit* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient |

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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:** «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7128 (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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