---
title: How can I cut that thick tree-trunk in two with a wax hatchet?" — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: How can I cut that thick tree-trunk in two with a wax hatchet?" Who acts: I, that. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 2, sentence 109

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How can I cut that thick tree-trunk in two with a wax hatchet?"

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**Who acts:** I, that · **What happens:** cut, trunk · **To what, where:** two

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, 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 (I, that), 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:pg7128:8:109
# text = How can I cut that thick tree-trunk in two with a wax hatchet?"
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	nsubj	_	_
6	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
7	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	trunk	trunk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	obl	_	_
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	wax	wax	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	hatchet	hatchet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut** | can | I |  |  | two |  | with a wax hatchet | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V PP PP»: agent=Agent with hatchet=Instrument |
| 2 | **trunk** |  | that |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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