---
title: Every day, before breakfast, he cuts off the heads of two or three m… — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Every day, before breakfast, he cuts off the heads of two or three men, just to amuse himself. Who acts: corpse. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 15, sentence 6

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Every day, before breakfast, he cuts off the heads of two or three men, just to amuse himself.

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**Who acts:** corpse · **What happens:** cut off, amuse · **To what, where:** heads, corpse

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (corpse), 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:pg7128:21:6
# text = Every day, before breakfast, he cuts off the heads of two or three men, just to amuse himself.
1	Every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	2	det	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	before	before	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	breakfast	breakfast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	cuts	cut	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	off	off	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
13	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	conj	_	_
16	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	just	just	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	amuse	amuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
21	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut off** | present | corpse | the heads of two men |  |  | day |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |
| 2 | **amuse** | to-infinitive | corpse *not said here* | corpse |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus himself=Experiencer |

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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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