---
title: And there were a great black dog, a falcon, and an otter, and they w… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And there were a great black dog, a falcon, and an otter, and they were quarrelling over the spoil. Who acts: great black dog, dog. 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 27

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And there were a great black dog, a falcon, and an otter, and they were quarrelling over the spoil.

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**Who acts:** great black dog, dog · **What happens:** be, quarrell · **To what, where:** spoil

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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 (great black dog, dog), 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:pg7885:21:27
# text = And there were a great black dog, a falcon, and an otter, and they were quarrelling over the spoil.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	falcon	falcon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	otter	otter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	quarrelling	quarrell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
20	over	over	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	spoil	spoil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a great black dog and a falcon and a otter |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **quarrell** | past · progressive | dog |  |  | the spoil |  |  | 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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