---
title: He could scarcely walk from his toe-nails curling up like ram's horn… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He could scarcely walk from his toe-nails curling up like ram's horns that had not been cut for many hundred years, and big long hair. Who acts: Prince, toe nails. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatic
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 13, sentence 38

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He could scarcely walk from his toe-nails curling up like ram's horns that had not been cut for many hundred years, and big long hair.

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**Who acts:** Prince, toe nails · **What happens:** walk, curl up, not cut · **To what, where:** toe nails, horns

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince, toe nails), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg14241:1166`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg14241:27:38
# text = He could scarcely walk from his toe-nails curling up like ram's horns that had not been cut for many hundred years, and big long hair.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	walk	walk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
7	toe	toe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	_
9	nails	nail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
10	curling	curl	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	acl	_	_
11	up	up	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	like	like	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	ram	ram	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	's	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	horns	horn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
19	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	20	aux:pass	_	_
20	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	acl:relcl	_	_
21	for	for	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
23	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	24	nummod	_	_
24	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
27	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
28	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **walk** | could | Prince |  |  | Prince's toe nails and big long hair |  | scarcely *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from nail=Trajectory |
| 2 | **curl up** | gerund | Prince's toe nails and big long hair *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like ram's horns | vn coil-9.6-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **cut** | past · perfect · passive |  | ram's horns |  |  | year |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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