---
title: Who should take the heads off the knot but the man that put the head… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Who should take the heads off the knot but the man that put the heads on?" said the king. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Sea-maiden, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Sea-maiden, sentence 132

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Who should take the heads off the knot but the man that put the heads on?" said the king.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** take, put on, say · **To what, where:** heads, knot, king · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (man), 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:pg7885:21:132
# text = Who should take the heads off the knot but the man that put the heads on?" said the king.
1	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	3	nsubj	_	_
2	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	off	off	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	knot	knot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | should |  | the heads |  | the knot |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent head=Theme off knot=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **put on** | past | the man | the heads |  |  |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent head=Goal |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the man | the king |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent king=Topic |

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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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