---
title: Now," says the giant, "there is a fir tree beside that loch down the… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Now," says the giant, "there is a fir tree beside that loch down there, and there is a magpie's nest in its top. Who acts: fir tree, nest. 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 138

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Now," says the giant, "there is a fir tree beside that loch down there, and there is a magpie's nest in its top.

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**Who acts:** fir tree, nest · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** giant · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (fir tree, nest), 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:pg7885:31:138
# text = Now," says the giant, "there is a fir tree beside that loch down there, and there is a magpie's nest in its top.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
4	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
10	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	fir	fir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
14	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	loch	loch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
17	down	down	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	22	expl	_	_
22	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	magpie	magpie	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	's	's	PART	POS	_	24	case	_	_
26	nest	nest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
27	in	in	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present |  | the giant |  |  | now |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent giant=Topic |
| 2 | **be** | present | a fir tree beside that loch |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **be** | present | a magpie's nest in nest's top |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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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