---
title: “Letters to kill bearer” have been traced from Homer downwards by Pr… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Letters to kill bearer” have been traced from Homer downwards by Prof. Who acts: Prof. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, XXXV. the Fish and the Ring., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, XXXV. the Fish and the Ring., sentence 4

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“Letters to kill bearer” have been traced from Homer downwards by Prof.

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**Who acts:** Prof · **What happens:** kill, trace · **To what, where:** bearer, Letters, Homer

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, XXXV. the Fish and the Ring.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prof), 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:pg7439:85:4
# text = “Letters to kill bearer” have been traced from Homer downwards by Prof.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Letters	letter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	acl	_	_
5	bearer	bearer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
7	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	traced	trace	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	from	from	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	Homer	homer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
12	downwards	downwards	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	Prof	Prof	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kill** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Prof *not said here* | bearer |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bearer=Theme |
| 2 | **trace** | present · perfect · passive | Prof | Letters |  | Homer |  | downwards *property* | vn scribble-25.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=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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