---
title: He is a savage dog, I can tell you; but you needn’t be afraid of him… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He is a savage dog, I can tell you; but you needn’t be afraid of him either. Who acts: Copenhagen, I, you. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tinder-box, 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/pg640/46/27/)

<!-- 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 Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Tinder-box](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/46/) / 27

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Tinder-box, sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He is a savage dog, I can tell you; but you needn’t be afraid of him either.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Copenhagen, I, you · **What happens:** be, tell, not be · **To what, where:** savage dog, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tinder-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Copenhagen, I, you), 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:pg640:46:27
# text = He is a savage dog, I can tell you; but you needn’t be afraid of him either.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	savage	savage	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
14	need	need	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	cop	_	_
17	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
20	either	either	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | Copenhagen | a savage dog |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | can | I | a savage dog *not said here* | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 3 | **not** **is** | present | you |  |  |  |  | of Copenhagen; afraid, either *property* | 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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/46/26/)
- next →: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/46/28/)
- ↑ back to [The Tinder-box](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/46/)