---
title: If he had kept still before, he kept stiller now. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: If he had kept still before, he kept stiller now. 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 48

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If he had kept still before, he kept stiller now.

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**Who acts:** grandfather · **What happens:** keep · **To what, where:** grandfather

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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:pg7885:27:48
# text = If he had kept still before, he kept stiller now.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	kept	keep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	advcl	_	_
5	still	still	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	before	before	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	stiller	still	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	xcomp	_	_
11	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect · passive |  | grandfather |  |  |  | before *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **keep** | past | grandfather |  |  |  | now | still *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: 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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