---
title: They pierced like daggers to my heart. — Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains · tree and pragmatics
description: They pierced like daggers to my heart. Who acts: words. A sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, A Historical Tale., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains, A Historical Tale., part 1, sentence 38

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They pierced like daggers to my heart.

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**Who acts:** words · **What happens:** pierce

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This is a sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, A Historical Tale., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (words), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg74323:18:38
# text = They pierced like daggers to my heart.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	pierced	pierce	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	like	like	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	daggers	dagger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pierce** | past | words *= word* |  |  |  |  | like daggers; to my heart | vn poke-19-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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:** «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, Project Gutenberg book 74323 (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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