---
title: Scarcely had the thought crossed his brain before the ox appeared an… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Scarcely had the thought crossed his brain before the ox appeared and began to drink up the water. Who acts: Scarcely, thought, ox. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/88/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/) / 88

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 88

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Scarcely had the thought crossed his brain before the ox appeared and began to drink up the water.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Scarcely, thought, ox · **What happens:** have, cross, appear, begin, drink up · **To what, where:** brain, water

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Scarcely, thought, ox), 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:pg5615:22:88
# text = Scarcely had the thought crossed his brain before the ox appeared and began to drink up the water.
1	Scarcely	Scarcely	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	crossed	cross	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	brain	brain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	ox	ox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	up	up	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Scarcely |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cross** | past | the thought | Scarcely's brain |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brain=Patient |
| 3 | **appear** | past | the ox |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **begin** | past | the ox *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **drink up** | to-infinitive | the ox *not said here* | the water |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Patient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 87](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/87/)
- next →: [sentence 89](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/89/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/)