---
title: The king's son was on foot before the sun; he caught up his bow and… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The king's son was on foot before the sun; he caught up his bow and his quiver of arrows to kill the birds. Who acts: son, arrows. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Battle of the Birds, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Battle of the Birds, sentence 120

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The king's son was on foot before the sun; he caught up his bow and his quiver of arrows to kill the birds.

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**Who acts:** son, arrows · **What happens:** be, catch up, kill, quiver · **To what, where:** foot, bow, birds

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Battle of the Birds. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son, arrows), 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:pg7885:31:120
# text = The king's son was on foot before the sun; he caught up his bow and his quiver of arrows to kill the birds.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	before	before	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
14	up	up	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	bow	bow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	quiver	quiver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	arrows	arrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the king's son |  |  | foot | before the sun |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **catch up** | past | son | son's bow and son's quiver of arrows |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bow=Theme |
| 3 | **kill** | to-infinitive | son *not said here* | the birds |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=Theme |
| 4 | **quiver** |  | arrows |  |  |  |  |  | nom quiver «feeling intransitive»: of=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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