---
title: Never before did a bull have such bright and tender eyes, and such s… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Never before did a bull have such bright and tender eyes, and such smooth horns of ivory, as this one. Who acts: bull. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, sentence 23

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Never before did a bull have such bright and tender eyes, and such smooth horns of ivory, as this one.

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**Who acts:** bull · **What happens:** not do, have · **To what, where:** such smooth horns, such bright eyes

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bull), 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:pg976:10:23
# text = Never before did a bull have such bright and tender eyes, and such smooth horns of ivory, as this one.
1	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
2	before	before	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bull	bull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
7	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
8	bright	bright	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	tender	tender	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	_
11	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	horns	horn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	ivory	ivory	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	as	as	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	22	det	_	_
22	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** | past |  | such smooth horns of ivory |  |  |  | before *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | present | a bull | such bright eyes |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent eye=Patient |

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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:** «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (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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