---
title: The spear must be as thick in the middle as a large tree, and both i… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The spear must be as thick in the middle as a large tree, and both its ends must be sharp. Who acts: spear, ends. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon of the North(2), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon of the North(2), sentence 140

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The spear must be as thick in the middle as a large tree, and both its ends must be sharp.

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**Who acts:** spear, ends · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** middle

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon of the North(2). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spear, ends), 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:pg640:5:140
# text = The spear must be as thick in the middle as a large tree, and both its ends must be sharp.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	as	as	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	as	as	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
16	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	18	det	_	_
17	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	ends	end	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
19	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	cop	_	_
21	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | must | the spear |  |  | the middle |  | as a large tree; thick *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | must | spear's ends |  |  |  |  | sharp *property* | tree rules |

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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 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.

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