---
title: But when the priest came, she would marry only the one who could tak… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But when the priest came, she would marry only the one who could take the heads off the knot without cutting it. " Who acts: priest, one. 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/pg7885/21/131/)

<!-- 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/) / 131

# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Sea-maiden, sentence 131

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But when the priest came, she would marry only the one who could take the heads off the knot without cutting it. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** priest, one · **What happens:** come, marry, take, cut · **To what, where:** heads, knot, 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 (priest, one), 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:pg7885:21:131
# text = But when the priest came, she would marry only the one who could take the heads off the knot without cutting it. "
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
2	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	5	mark	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	priest	priest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	csubj	_	_
10	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
18	off	off	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	knot	knot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
22	cutting	cut	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the priest |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **marry** | would | priest |  |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **take** | could | the one | the heads |  | the knot |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent head=Theme off knot=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **cut** | gerund | the one *not said here* | head |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset it=Product |

<!-- .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 130](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/21/130/)
- next →: [sentence 132](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/21/132/)
- ↑ back to [The Sea-maiden](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/21/)