---
title: So he stood with his back against it while the hostess killed the ol… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So he stood with his back against it while the hostess killed the old man. Who acts: hole, hostess. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Tale of Ivan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Tale of Ivan, sentence 41

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So he stood with his back against it while the hostess killed the old man.

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**Who acts:** hole, hostess · **What happens:** stand, kill · **To what, where:** back, old man

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Tale of Ivan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hole, hostess), 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:pg7885:26:41
# text = So he stood with his back against it while the hostess killed the old man.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	against	against	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
9	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	hostess	hostess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	killed	kill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | hole |  |  | back |  | with hole's back | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent against it=Location |
| 2 | **kill** | past | the hostess | the old man |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Theme |

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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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