---
title: It had a body like an ox, and legs like a frog, two short fore-legs,… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It had a body like an ox, and legs like a frog, two short fore-legs, and two long ones behind, and besides that it had a tail like a serpent, ten fathoms in length. Who acts: creature. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon of the North(2), with its dependency tree and the 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/5/4/)

<!-- 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 Dragon of the North(2)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/5/) / 4

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon of the North(2), sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It had a body like an ox, and legs like a frog, two short fore-legs, and two long ones behind, and besides that it had a tail like a serpent, ten fathoms in length.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** creature · **What happens:** have, beside · **To what, where:** body, tail

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (creature), 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:pg640:5:4
# text = It had a body like an ox, and legs like a frog, two short fore-legs, and two long ones behind, and besides that it had a tail like a serpent, ten fathoms in length.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	like	like	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	ox	ox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	frog	frog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
16	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
17	fore	fore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
22	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	24	nummod	_	_
23	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	parataxis	_	_
25	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	besides	beside	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
29	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
30	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
31	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	ccomp	_	_
32	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obj	_	_
34	like	like	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
38	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	39	nummod	_	_
39	fathoms	fathom	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	36	appos	_	_
40	in	in	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
41	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | creature | a body |  |  |  | like a ox; legs like a frog and two short fore legs *obl* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent body=Patient |
| 2 | **beside** | present | creature *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | creature | a tail |  |  |  | like a serpent | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=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 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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/5/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/5/5/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon of the North(2)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/5/)