---
title: An old soothsayer met her, and she told how it had befallen her marr… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: An old soothsayer met her, and she told how it had befallen her married mate. Who acts: old soothsayer, daughter. 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 145

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An old soothsayer met her, and she told how it had befallen her married mate.

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**Who acts:** old soothsayer, daughter · **What happens:** meet, tell, befall · **To what, where:** daughter, soothsayer · **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 (old soothsayer, daughter), 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:pg7885:21:145
# text = An old soothsayer met her, and she told how it had befallen her married mate.
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	soothsayer	soothsayer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	befallen	befall	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	ccomp	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	married	married	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	mate	mate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | a old soothsayer | daughter |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | daughter |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **befall** | past · perfect · passive |  | soothsayer |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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