---
title: Deirdre kept sitting on the brink of the grave, constantly asking th… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Deirdre kept sitting on the brink of the grave, constantly asking the gravediggers to dig the pit wide and free. Who acts: Deirdre, gravediggers. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of Deirdre, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/13/200/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Celtic Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/) / [The Story of Deirdre](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/13/) / 200

# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Story of Deirdre, sentence 200

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Deirdre kept sitting on the brink of the grave, constantly asking the gravediggers to dig the pit wide and free.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Deirdre, gravediggers · **What happens:** keep, sit, ask, dig · **To what, where:** brink, gravediggers, pit

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of Deirdre. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Deirdre, gravediggers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7885:13:200
# text = Deirdre kept sitting on the brink of the grave, constantly asking the gravediggers to dig the pit wide and free.
1	Deirdre	Deirdre	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	xcomp	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	brink	brink	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	grave	grave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	constantly	constantly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	gravediggers	gravedigger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	dig	dig	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	pit	pit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | past | Deirdre |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | gerund | Deirdre *not said here* |  |  | the brink of the grave |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on brink=Location |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | gerund | Deirdre *not said here* | the gravediggers |  |  |  | constantly *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent gravedigger=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **dig** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the gravediggers *not said here* | the pit |  |  |  | wide *property* | vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent pit=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 199](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/13/199/)
- next →: [sentence 201](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/13/201/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Deirdre](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/13/)