---
title: So Nix Nought Nothing threw down the hair dagger and out of it grew… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So Nix Nought Nothing threw down the hair dagger and out of it grew as quick as lightning a thick hedge of sharp razors placed criss-cross. Who acts: Nothing, sharp razors. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Nix Nought Nothing, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Nix Nought Nothing, sentence 48

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So Nix Nought Nothing threw down the hair dagger and out of it grew as quick as lightning a thick hedge of sharp razors placed criss-cross.

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**Who acts:** Nothing, sharp razors · **What happens:** throw down, grow, place · **To what, where:** hair dagger, criss cross

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Nix Nought Nothing. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nothing, sharp razors), 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:pg7439:12:48
# text = So Nix Nought Nothing threw down the hair dagger and out of it grew as quick as lightning a thick hedge of sharp razors placed criss-cross.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	Nix	Nix	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Nought	nought	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	4	compound	_	_
4	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	5	nsubj	_	_
5	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	down	down	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	dagger	dagger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	out	out	ADP	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	_
14	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	as	as	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	quick	quick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	hedge	hedge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	appos	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	razors	razor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nmod	_	_
25	placed	place	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	24	acl	_	_
26	criss	criss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	cross	cross	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **throw down** | past | Nothing | the hair dagger |  |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dagger=Theme |
| 2 | **grow** | past | Nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of dagger; quick *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **place** | participle | sharp razors *not said here* | criss cross |  |  |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent cross=Theme |

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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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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