---
title: They kept at it thus for a long time, and about the mouth of night h… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They kept at it thus for a long time, and about the mouth of night he cut another head off the beast. Who acts: Cloopersteich, man. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Sea-maiden, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/21/115/)

<!-- 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 Sea-maiden](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/21/) / 115

# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Sea-maiden, sentence 115

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They kept at it thus for a long time, and about the mouth of night he cut another head off the beast.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Cloopersteich, man · **What happens:** keep, cut · **To what, where:** midst, head

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Sea-maiden. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cloopersteich, man), 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:pg7885:21:115
# text = They kept at it thus for a long time, and about the mouth of night he cut another head off the beast.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
5	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
12	about	about	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	cut	cut	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
19	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	20	det	_	_
20	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	off	off	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	beast	beast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | past | Cloopersteich |  |  | midst | time | thus *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent at it=Location |
| 2 | **cut** | past | man | another head |  |  |  | about the mouth of night; off the beast | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent head=Patient off beast=Co-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 114](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/21/114/)
- next →: [sentence 116](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/21/116/)
- ↑ back to [The Sea-maiden](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/21/)