---
title: The eldest sister came home alone, and the husband asked, "Where is… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The eldest sister came home alone, and the husband asked, "Where is your sister?" Who acts: eldest sister, husband. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fair, Brown, and Trembling, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Fair, Brown, and Trembling, sentence 127

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The eldest sister came home alone, and the husband asked, "Where is your sister?"

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**Who acts:** eldest sister, husband · **What happens:** come, ask, be · **To what, where:** sister · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fair, Brown, and Trembling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eldest sister, husband), 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:pg7885:23:127
# text = The eldest sister came home alone, and the husband asked, "Where is your sister?"
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	3	amod	_	_
3	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	home	home	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	Where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	17	advmod	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the eldest sister |  |  |  |  | alone, home *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the husband |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | your sister |  |  |  |  | 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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