---
title: It is nothing at all, Deirdre--merely the birds of the air astray an… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It is nothing at all, Deirdre--merely the birds of the air astray and seeking each other. Who acts: cry. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of Deirdre, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Story of Deirdre, sentence 34

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It is nothing at all, Deirdre--merely the birds of the air astray and seeking each other.

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**Who acts:** cry · **What happens:** be, seek · **To what, where:** nothing, all, each

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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 (cry), 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:pg7885:13:34
# text = It is nothing at all, Deirdre--merely the birds of the air astray and seeking each other.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	Deirdre	Deirdre	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	merely	merely	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	astray	astray	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	seeking	seek	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	conj	_	_
18	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	17	obj	_	_
19	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | cry | nothing |  | all |  | the birds of the air *nmod* | tree rules |
| 2 | **seek** | gerund | cry *not said here* | each |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent each=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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