---
title: And he told the story-teller never to trouble for fresh stories, but… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And he told the story-teller never to trouble for fresh stories, but every night as long as he lived he listened again and he laughed afresh at the tale of the lank grey beggarman. Who acts: man, lank grey beggarman. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story-teller At Fault, wit
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Story-teller At Fault, sentence 171

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And he told the story-teller never to trouble for fresh stories, but every night as long as he lived he listened again and he laughed afresh at the tale of the lank grey beggarman.

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**Who acts:** man, lank grey beggarman · **What happens:** tell, not trouble, live, listen, laugh · **To what, where:** story teller, tale · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (man, lank grey beggarman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg7885:1296`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7885:20:171
# text = And he told the story-teller never to trouble for fresh stories, but every night as long as he lived he listened again and he laughed afresh at the tale of the lank grey beggarman.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	_
7	teller	teller	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	iobj	_	_
8	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	trouble	trouble	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	fresh	fresh	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	stories	story	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
16	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	17	det	_	_
17	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl:unmarked	_	_
18	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
19	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	18	fixed	_	_
20	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	18	fixed	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	advcl	_	_
23	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	listened	listen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
25	again	again	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
27	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	conj	_	_
29	afresh	afresh	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	_
30	at	at	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
35	lank	lank	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	37	amod	_	_
36	grey	grey	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	37	amod	_	_
37	beggarman	beggarman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod	_	_
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | man |  | the story teller |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent teller=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **trouble** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for fresh stories | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **live** | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **listen** | past | man |  |  |  | again; night |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **laugh** | past | man |  |  | the tale of the lank grey beggarman |  | afresh *property* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **tell** |  | the lank grey beggarman |  |  |  |  |  | nom tale «communication intransitive»: of=agent |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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