---
title: When the cowboy got home, the eldest sister gave him a draught of ob… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When the cowboy got home, the eldest sister gave him a draught of oblivion, and he did not tell. Who acts: cowboy, eldest sister. 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 142

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When the cowboy got home, the eldest sister gave him a draught of oblivion, and he did not tell.

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**Who acts:** cowboy, eldest sister · **What happens:** get, give, not tell · **To what, where:** draught, cowboy · **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 (cowboy, eldest sister), 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:pg7885:23:142
# text = When the cowboy got home, the eldest sister gave him a draught of oblivion, and he did not tell.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	cowboy	cowboy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
5	home	home	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	9	amod	_	_
9	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	draught	draught	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	oblivion	oblivion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
21	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | the cowboy |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **give** | past | the eldest sister | a draught of oblivion | cowboy |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient draught=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | cowboy |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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