---
title: They told their errand to the herdsman, who endeavoured to dissuade… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They told their errand to the herdsman, who endeavoured to dissuade them, since none who had come thither on that quest had returned alive. Who acts: nephew, herdsman, none. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Wooing of Olwen, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/17/42/)

<!-- 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 Wooing of Olwen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/17/) / 42

# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Wooing of Olwen, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They told their errand to the herdsman, who endeavoured to dissuade them, since none who had come thither on that quest had returned alive.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** nephew, herdsman, none · **What happens:** tell, endeavour, dissuade, come, return · **To what, where:** errand, nephew, quest · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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, herdsman, none), 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:pg7885:17:42
# text = They told their errand to the herdsman, who endeavoured to dissuade them, since none who had come thither on that quest had returned alive.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	errand	errand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	iobj	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	herdsman	herdsman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	endeavoured	endeavour	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	dissuade	dissuade	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	none	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	19	nsubj	_	_
17	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	_
20	thither	thither	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	on	on	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
22	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	det	_	_
23	quest	quest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj:pass	_	_
24	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	returned	return	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	advcl	_	_
26	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | nephew |  | nephew's errand |  |  | to the herdsman | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent errand=Topic to herdsman=Recipient |
| 2 | **endeavour** | past | the herdsman |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **dissuade** | to-infinitive | the herdsman *not said here* | nephew |  |  |  |  | vn discourage-64.5 «NP V NP PP.eventuality»: agent=Causer they=Beneficiary |
| 4 | **come** | past · perfect | none |  |  |  |  | thither *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **return** | past · perfect · passive |  | that quest |  |  |  | alive *property* | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: subject=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 41](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/17/41/)
- next →: [sentence 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/17/43/)
- ↑ back to [The Wooing of Olwen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/17/)