---
title: The youth had his sword ready, and in another second the three heads… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The youth had his sword ready, and in another second the three heads were bobbing on the water. Who acts: youth, three heads. 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/pg3282/24/35/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 35

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The youth had his sword ready, and in another second the three heads were bobbing on the water.

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**Who acts:** youth, three heads · **What happens:** have, bob · **To what, where:** sword, water

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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 (youth, three heads), 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:pg3282:24:35
# text = The youth had his sword ready, and in another second the three heads were bobbing on the water.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	11	det	_	_
11	second	second	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	bobbing	bob	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the youth | youth's sword |  |  |  | ready *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sword=Patient |
| 2 | **bob** | past · progressive | the three heads |  |  | the water | second |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on water=Location |

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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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