---
title: When they came before the castle they beheld a vast flock of sheep,… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When they came before the castle they beheld a vast flock of sheep, boundless and without end. Who acts: nephew. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Wooing of Olwen, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Wooing of Olwen, sentence 41

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When they came before the castle they beheld a vast flock of sheep, boundless and without end.

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**Who acts:** nephew · **What happens:** come, behold · **To what, where:** castle, vast flock

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Wooing of Olwen. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nephew), 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:pg7885:17:41
# text = When they came before the castle they beheld a vast flock of sheep, boundless and without end.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
4	before	before	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	beheld	behold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	vast	vast	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	flock	flock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	boundless	boundless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	appos	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	without	without	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | nephew |  |  | the castle |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before castle=Location |
| 2 | **behold** | past | nephew | a vast flock of sheep |  |  |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer flock=Stimulus |

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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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