---
title: When Donald was safe at home, he pulled out his pocketful of bright… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When Donald was safe at home, he pulled out his pocketful of bright gold and began to weigh each piece in the scales. Who acts: 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 29

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When Donald was safe at home, he pulled out his pocketful of bright gold and began to weigh each piece in the scales.

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**Who acts:** Donald · **What happens:** be, pull out, begin, weigh · **To what, where:** home, pocketful, piece, 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 (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:pg7885:10:29
# text = When Donald was safe at home, he pulled out his pocketful of bright gold and began to weigh each piece in the scales.
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	4	mark	_	_
2	Donald	Donald	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	safe	safe	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	pulled	pull	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
10	out	out	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	pocketful	pocketful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	bright	bright	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	weigh	weigh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	21	det	_	_
21	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Donald |  |  | home |  | safe *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **pull out** | past | Donald | Donald's pocketful of bright gold |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **begin** | past | Donald *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **weigh** | to-infinitive | Donald *not said here* | each piece |  | the scales |  |  | vn register-54.1-2-1 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme piece=Value |

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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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