---
title: And he couldn't finish because a piece had stuck to the scales. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And he couldn't finish because a piece had stuck to 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 41

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And he couldn't finish because a piece had stuck to the scales.

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**Who acts:** Donald · **What happens:** not finish, stick · **To what, where:** piece

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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:pg7885:10:41
# text = And he couldn't finish because a piece had stuck to the scales.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	finish	finish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	stuck	stick	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	advcl	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **finish** | could | Donald |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **stick** | past · perfect · passive |  | a piece |  |  |  | to the scales | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP PP»: subject=Patient to scale=Co-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:** «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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