---
title: He and his good horse were always stumbling up against some tree or… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He and his good horse were always stumbling up against some tree or stumbling down into some bog-hole that by rights didn't ought to be there. Who acts: grandfather. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Andrew Coffey, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Andrew Coffey, sentence 4

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He and his good horse were always stumbling up against some tree or stumbling down into some bog-hole that by rights didn't ought to be there.

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**Who acts:** grandfather · **What happens:** stumble up, stumble down, do, be · **To what, where:** tree, bog hole

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Andrew Coffey. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (grandfather), 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:pg7885:27:4
# text = He and his good horse were always stumbling up against some tree or stumbling down into some bog-hole that by rights didn't ought to be there.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	8	advmod	_	_
8	stumbling	stumble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
9	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	against	against	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	12	det	_	_
12	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
13	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	stumbling	stumble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	_
15	down	down	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	into	into	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	20	det	_	_
18	bog	bog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	24	obj	_	_
22	by	by	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	rights	right	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl	_	_
24	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
26	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	parataxis	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
28	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	29	cop	_	_
29	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	26	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stumble up** | past · progressive | grandfather |  |  | some tree |  | always *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme against tree=Trajectory |
| 2 | **stumble down** | gerund | grandfather *not said here* |  |  | some bog hole |  | down *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into hole=Destination |
| 3 | **do** | past |  | some bog hole |  |  |  | by rights | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | there *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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