---
title: Then the second head said: “The smaller, the more dangerous, what's… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the second head said: “The smaller, the more dangerous, what's that?” Who acts: second head. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Red Ettin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Red Ettin, sentence 28

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Then the second head said: “The smaller, the more dangerous, what's that?”

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**Who acts:** second head · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** that · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Red Ettin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (second head), 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:pg7439:26:28
# text = Then the second head said: “The smaller, the more dangerous, what's that?”
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	second	second	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	4	amod	_	_
4	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	smaller	small	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	13	advmod	_	_
13	dangerous	dangerous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the second head |  |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | that |  |  |  |  | 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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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