---
title: "Did you ever, O king, hear a cat purring over a bowl of broth, or t… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Did you ever, O king, hear a cat purring over a bowl of broth, or the buzzing of beetles in the twilight, or a shrill tongued old woman scolding your head off?" Who acts: king, cat, shrill. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story-teller At Fault, with its dependency tree and 
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Story-teller At Fault, sentence 133

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"Did you ever, O king, hear a cat purring over a bowl of broth, or the buzzing of beetles in the twilight, or a shrill tongued old woman scolding your head off?"

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**Who acts:** king, cat, shrill · **What happens:** do, hear, purr, tongue, scold off · **To what, where:** you, cat, bowl, old woman, head

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story-teller At Fault. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, cat, shrill), 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:pg7885:20:133
# text = "Did you ever, O king, hear a cat purring over a bowl of broth, or the buzzing of beetles in the twilight, or a shrill tongued old woman scolding your head off?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	9	discourse	_	_
7	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
9	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	purring	purr	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	over	over	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	bowl	bowl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	broth	broth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	buzzing	buzzing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	beetles	beetle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nmod	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	twilight	twilight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
28	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	shrill	shrill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nsubj	_	_
31	tongued	tongue	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
32	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obj	_	_
34	scolding	scold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	31	advcl	_	_
35	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	36	nmod:poss	_	_
36	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	obj	_	_
37	off	off	ADP	RP	_	34	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | past | king *not said here* | you |  |  | ever |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Eventuality |
| 2 | **hear** *in a quote* | infinitive | king | a cat |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer cat=Stimulus |
| 3 | **purr** *in a quote* | gerund | a cat *not said here* |  |  | a bowl of broth or the buzzing of beetles in the twilight |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over bowl=Location |
| 4 | **tongue** *in a quote* | past | a shrill | old woman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **scold off** *in a quote* | gerund | a shrill *not said here* | your head |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Theme |

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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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