---
title: And when his wife saw him she said: "Home in the nick of time. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And when his wife saw him she said: "Home in the nick of time. Who acts: wife. 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 54

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And when his wife saw him she said: "Home in the nick of time.

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** see, say · **To what, where:** road, Home, nick · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (wife), 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:pg7885:26:54
# text = And when his wife saw him she said: "Home in the nick of time.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	nick	nick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | road's wife | road |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | wife | Home |  | the nick of time |  |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent in nick=Manner |

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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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