---
title: He went home for the big axe and the wood knife, and sure he was not… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He went home for the big axe and the wood knife, and sure he was not long on his journey, and he was the boy behind the big axe. Who acts: trick. 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 207

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He went home for the big axe and the wood knife, and sure he was not long on his journey, and he was the boy behind the big axe.

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**Who acts:** trick · **What happens:** go, not be, be, journey · **To what, where:** journey, boy, big axe

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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 (trick), 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:pg7885:31:207
# text = He went home for the big axe and the wood knife, and sure he was not long on his journey, and he was the boy behind the big axe.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	home	home	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	ccomp	_	_
19	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	journey	journey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
24	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
28	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | trick |  |  |  |  | for the big axe and the wood knife; home *property* | vn help-72.1-2 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent for axe=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **not** **is** | past | trick |  |  | trick's journey |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | past | trick | the boy |  | the big axe |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **journey** |  | trick |  |  |  |  |  | nom journey «act transitive»: poss=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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