---
title: He took to the moors, but if he did, the birds were not so easy to t… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He took to the moors, but if he did, the birds were not so easy to take. Who acts: son, birds. 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 121

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He took to the moors, but if he did, the birds were not so easy to take.

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**Who acts:** son, birds · **What happens:** take, do, not be

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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, birds), 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:pg7885:31:121
# text = He took to the moors, but if he did, the birds were not so easy to take.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	moors	moor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	easy	easy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	csubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | son |  |  |  |  | to the moors *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to moor=Result |
| 2 | **do** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | son |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **is** | past | the birds |  |  |  |  | easy *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **take** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «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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