---
title: "He has told me to cut a thick tree-trunk in two with a wax hatchet. — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "He has told me to cut a thick tree-trunk in two with a wax hatchet. Who acts: Labam. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/8/113/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Indian Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/) / [Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/8/) / 113

# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 2, sentence 113

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"He has told me to cut a thick tree-trunk in two with a wax hatchet.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Labam · **What happens:** tell, cut · **To what, where:** king, thick tree trunk, two · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Labam), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7128:8:113
# text = "He has told me to cut a thick tree-trunk in two with a wax hatchet.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
9	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
10	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	trunk	trunk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	obl	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	wax	wax	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	hatchet	hatchet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present · perfect | Labam |  | king |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **cut** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | Labam *not said here* | a thick tree trunk |  | two |  | with a wax hatchet | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent trunk=Patient with hatchet=Instrument |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 112](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/8/112/)
- next →: [sentence 114](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/8/114/)
- ↑ back to [Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/8/)