---
title: Two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, with strong collars of rubi… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, with strong collars of rubies, sported round him, and his courser cast up four sods with its four hoofs like four swallows about his head. Who acts: courser. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Wooing of Olwen, with its dependency tree an
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Wooing of Olwen, sentence 8

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Two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, with strong collars of rubies, sported round him, and his courser cast up four sods with its four hoofs like four swallows about his head.

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**Who acts:** courser · **What happens:** breast, sport, cast up · **To what, where:** strong collars, four sods

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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 (courser), 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:pg7885:17:8
# text = Two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, with strong collars of rubies, sported round him, and his courser cast up four sods with its four hoofs like four swallows about his head.
1	Two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
2	brindled	brindled	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	breasted	breast	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	amod	_	_
7	greyhounds	greyhound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	collars	collar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	conj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	rubies	ruby	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	sported	sport	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
16	round	round	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	courser	courser	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
22	cast	cast	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
23	up	up	ADP	RP	_	22	compound:prt	_	_
24	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	nummod	_	_
25	sods	sod	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obj	_	_
26	with	with	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
28	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	29	nummod	_	_
29	hoofs	hoof	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	_
30	like	like	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	32	nummod	_	_
32	swallows	swallow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	nmod	_	_
33	about	about	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	35	nmod:poss	_	_
35	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **breast** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sport** | participle |  | strong collars of rubies *not said here* |  |  |  | round briar | tree rules |
| 3 | **cast up** | past | briar's courser | four sods |  |  |  | with courser's four hoofs like four swallows about briar's head | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sod=Product |

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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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