---
title: No sooner did he that, than there were twenty miles of blackthorn wo… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: No sooner did he that, than there were twenty miles of blackthorn wood, so thick that scarce a weasel could go through it. Who acts: twig, weasel. 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 204

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No sooner did he that, than there were twenty miles of blackthorn wood, so thick that scarce a weasel could go through it.

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**Who acts:** twig, weasel · **What happens:** do, be, scarce, go · **To what, where:** wood

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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 (twig, weasel), 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:pg7885:31:204
# text = No sooner did he that, than there were twenty miles of blackthorn wood, so thick that scarce a weasel could go through it.
1	No	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	2	det	_	_
2	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
10	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	miles	mile	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	blackthorn	blackthorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obl	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
19	scarce	scarce	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	weasel	weasel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
22	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	ccomp	_	_
24	through	through	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | twig |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | thick *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **scarce** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **go** | could | a weasel |  |  | wood |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme through it=Initial\_Location |

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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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