---
title: When the serpent rears up its body you will cut off its three heads… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When the serpent rears up its body you will cut off its three heads with one blow of your sword. Who acts: serpent, you, sword. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/24/29/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 29

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When the serpent rears up its body you will cut off its three heads with one blow of your sword.

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**Who acts:** serpent, you, sword · **What happens:** rear up, cut off, blow · **To what, where:** body, three heads

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (serpent, you, sword), 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:pg3282:24:29
# text = When the serpent rears up its body you will cut off its three heads with one blow of your sword.
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	4	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	rears	rear	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	off	off	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rear up** | present | the serpent | serpent's body |  |  |  |  | vn rear-26.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent body=Patient |
| 2 | **cut off** | future | you | serpent's three heads |  |  |  | with one blow of your sword | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |
| 3 | **blow** |  | your sword |  |  |  |  |  | nom blow «act intransitive»: of=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:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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