---
title: The lad grasped it and gave it a shake or two, and it flew into a hu… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The lad grasped it and gave it a shake or two, and it flew into a hundred splinters. Who acts: lad, sword. 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 19

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The lad grasped it and gave it a shake or two, and it flew into a hundred splinters.

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**Who acts:** lad, sword · **What happens:** grasp, give, fly · **To what, where:** sword, hundred splinters

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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 (lad, sword), 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:pg7885:21:19
# text = The lad grasped it and gave it a shake or two, and it flew into a hundred splinters.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	lad	lad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	grasped	grasp	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	shake	shake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	into	into	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
19	splinters	splinter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grasp** | past | the lad | sword |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 2 | **give** | past | the lad *not said here* | sword |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent it=Recipient shake=Theme |
| 3 | **fly** | past | sword |  |  |  |  | into hundred splinters *result* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme into splinter=Result |

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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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