---
title: But I have felt myself more at liberty than the translators themselv… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But I have felt myself more at liberty than the translators themselves, who have generally been over-literal, in changing, excising, or modifying the original. Who acts: I, liberty. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, _to Alfred Nutt_, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/2/18/)

<!-- 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/) / [\_to Alfred Nutt\_](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/2/) / 18

# Celtic Fairy Tales, \_to Alfred Nutt\_, sentence 18

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But I have felt myself more at liberty than the translators themselves, who have generally been over-literal, in changing, excising, or modifying the original.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, liberty · **What happens:** feel, be, change, excise, modify · **To what, where:** myself, liberty, original

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, \_to Alfred Nutt\_. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, liberty), 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:pg7885:2:18
# text = But I have felt myself more at liberty than the translators themselves, who have generally been over-literal, in changing, excising, or modifying the original.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	felt	feel	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
6	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	liberty	liberty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	than	than	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	translators	translator	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
12	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
15	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
16	generally	generally	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
17	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	18	cop	_	_
18	over-literal	over-literal	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
21	changing	change	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
23	excising	excise	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	modifying	modify	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	conj	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	original	original	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feel** | present · perfect | I | myself |  | liberty than the translators  translators |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent at liberty=Location |
| 2 | **is** | present · perfect | liberty than the translators  translators |  |  |  |  | generally, over-literal *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **change** | gerund | liberty than the translators  translators *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **excise** | gerund | liberty than the translators  translators *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **modify** | gerund | liberty than the translators  translators *not said here* | the original |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent original=Patient |

<!-- .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 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/2/17/)
- next →: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/2/19/)
- ↑ back to [\_to Alfred Nutt\_](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/2/)