---
title: "By Jabers," says the king, "I say nothing beats the art o' man, bar… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "By Jabers," says the king, "I say nothing beats the art o' man, barring the bees." Who acts: Jabers, nothing. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, King O'toole and His Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, King O'toole and His Goose, sentence 40

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"By Jabers," says the king, "I say nothing beats the art o' man, barring the bees."

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**Who acts:** Jabers, nothing · **What happens:** say, beat, bar · **To what, where:** king, art, bees · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, King O'toole and His Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Jabers, nothing), 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:pg7885:16:40
# text = "By Jabers," says the king, "I say nothing beats the art o' man, barring the bees."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	By	by	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	Jabers	Jaber	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	14	nsubj	_	_
14	beats	beat	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	art	art	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	o	of	ADP	IN	Abbr=Yes	19	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	_
19	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	barring	bar	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	bees	bee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Jabers | the king |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent king=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | Jabers *= jaber* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **beat** *in a quote* | present | nothing | the art |  |  |  | of man | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location art=Theme |
| 4 | **bar** *in a quote* | gerund | nothing *not said here* | the bees |  |  |  |  | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer bee=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.

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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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