---
title: The giant came headlong, and there he is fleecing his head and neck… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The giant came headlong, and there he is fleecing his head and neck in the thorns. Who acts: giant, 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 205

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The giant came headlong, and there he is fleecing his head and neck in the thorns.

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**Who acts:** giant, weasel · **What happens:** come, fleece · **To what, where:** head, thorns

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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 (giant, 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:pg7885:31:205
# text = The giant came headlong, and there he is fleecing his head and neck in the thorns.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	headlong	headlong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	fleecing	fleece	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	thorns	thorn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the giant |  |  |  |  | headlong *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fleece** | present · progressive | weasel | weasel's head and neck |  | the thorns; there |  |  | vn cheat-10.6.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Source |

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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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