---
title: He only asked you to cut a couple of sticks and be careful not to lo… — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He only asked you to cut a couple of sticks and be careful not to lose his knife." Who acts: man. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20, sentence 33

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He only asked you to cut a couple of sticks and be careful not to lose his knife."

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** ask, cut, be, not lose · **To what, where:** you, couple, knife

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg7128:26:33
# text = He only asked you to cut a couple of sticks and be careful not to lose his knife."
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	only	only	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
13	careful	careful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	lose	lose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | man |  | you |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent you=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **cut** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | man *not said here* | a couple of sticks |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset couple=Product |
| 3 | **is** | infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | careful *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **lose** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* | man's knife |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knife=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:** «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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