---
title: The herd drew back his sword, and the head was off the giant in a tw… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The herd drew back his sword, and the head was off the giant in a twinkling. Who acts: herd, head. 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 45

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The herd drew back his sword, and the head was off the giant in a twinkling.

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**Who acts:** herd, head · **What happens:** draw back, be · **To what, where:** sword, twinkling

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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 (herd, head), 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:pg7885:21:45
# text = The herd drew back his sword, and the head was off the giant in a twinkling.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	herd	herd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	drew	draw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	back	back	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	off	off	ADP	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	twinkling	twinkling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **draw back** | past | the herd | herd's sword |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sword=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | the head |  |  | a twinkling |  | giant *property* | 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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