---
title: Ah, Donald, my boy, it was an ill day when you borrowed my scales." — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Ah, Donald, my boy, it was an ill day when you borrowed my scales." Who acts: trick, Donald. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Hudden and Dudden and Donald O'neary, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Hudden and Dudden and Donald O'neary, sentence 121

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Ah, Donald, my boy, it was an ill day when you borrowed my scales."

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**Who acts:** trick, Donald · **What happens:** be, borrow · **To what, where:** ill day, scales

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Hudden and Dudden and Donald O'neary. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (trick, Donald), 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:pg7885:10:121
# text = Ah, Donald, my boy, it was an ill day when you borrowed my scales."
1	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	15	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	Donald	Donald	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	borrowed	borrow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | trick | a ill day |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **borrow** | past | Donald | my scales |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent scale=Theme |

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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:** «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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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