---
title: He got a splinter of grey stone, and in a twinkling there were twent… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He got a splinter of grey stone, and in a twinkling there were twenty miles, by breadth and height, of great grey rock behind them. Who acts: giant. 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 215

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He got a splinter of grey stone, and in a twinkling there were twenty miles, by breadth and height, of great grey rock behind them.

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**Who acts:** giant · **What happens:** get · **To what, where:** splinter, twinkling

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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), 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:pg7885:31:215
# text = He got a splinter of grey stone, and in a twinkling there were twenty miles, by breadth and height, of great grey rock behind them.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	splinter	splinter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	grey	grey	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	twinkling	twinkling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
13	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	14	expl	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
15	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	miles	mile	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	by	by	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	breadth	breadth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	height	height	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
25	grey	grey	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
27	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | giant | a splinter of grey stone |  | a twinkling and great grey rock behind miles |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer splinter=Stimulus |

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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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