---
title: The cow soon observed Tom's oak-leaf hat, and liking the appearance… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The cow soon observed Tom's oak-leaf hat, and liking the appearance of it, took poor Tom and the thistle at one mouthful. Who acts: cow, liking. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The History of Tom Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The History of Tom Thumb, sentence 27

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The cow soon observed Tom's oak-leaf hat, and liking the appearance of it, took poor Tom and the thistle at one mouthful.

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**Who acts:** cow, liking · **What happens:** observe, like, take · **To what, where:** oak leaf hat, appearance, poor Tom, one mouthful

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The History of Tom Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cow, liking), 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:pg7439:28:27
# text = The cow soon observed Tom's oak-leaf hat, and liking the appearance of it, took poor Tom and the thistle at one mouthful.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
4	observed	observe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	's	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	oak	oak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	leaf	leaf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	hat	hat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
13	liking	like	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	csubj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	appearance	appearance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
19	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
20	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	thistle	thistle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	conj	_	_
25	at	at	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	27	nummod	_	_
27	mouthful	mouthful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **observe** | past | the cow | Tom's oak leaf hat |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent hat=Topic |
| 2 | **like** | gerund |  | the appearance of appearance |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot appearance=Theme |
| 3 | **take** | past | liking | poor Tom and the thistle |  | one mouthful |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent tom=Theme at mouthful=Asset |

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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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