---
title: Then Owen unsheathed his sword, and cut off the serpent’s head and w… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then Owen unsheathed his sword, and cut off the serpent’s head and went on his way, and the lion followed and played about him, as if he had been a greyhound. Who acts: Owen, lion. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31, with its dependency tree and the pr
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/31/96/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 96

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then Owen unsheathed his sword, and cut off the serpent’s head and went on his way, and the lion followed and played about him, as if he had been a greyhound.

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**Who acts:** Owen, lion · **What happens:** unsheathe, cut off, go, follow, play, be · **To what, where:** sword, head, way, greyhound

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Owen, lion), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3454:31:96
# text = Then Owen unsheathed his sword, and cut off the serpent’s head and went on his way, and the lion followed and played about him, as if he had been a greyhound.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	Owen	Owen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	unsheathed	unsheathe	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	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	_
9	off	off	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
23	followed	follow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
26	about	about	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
29	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	35	mark	_	_
30	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	35	mark	_	_
31	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	35	nsubj	_	_
32	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	35	aux	_	_
33	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	35	cop	_	_
34	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	greyhound	greyhound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **unsheathe** | past | Owen | Owen's sword |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cut off** | participle |  | the serpent's head |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |
| 3 | **go** | past |  |  |  | Owen's way |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on way=Location |
| 4 | **follow** | past | the lion |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **play** | past | Owen *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about lion | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | lion | a greyhound |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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