---
title: He threw it behind him and there was a fresh-water loch, twenty mile… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He threw it behind him and there was a fresh-water loch, twenty miles in length and breadth, behind them. Who acts: son, fresh water loch. 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 226

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He threw it behind him and there was a fresh-water loch, twenty miles in length and breadth, behind them.

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**Who acts:** son, fresh water loch · **What happens:** throw, be · **To what, where:** ear

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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 (son, fresh water loch), 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:pg7885:31:226
# text = He threw it behind him and there was a fresh-water loch, twenty miles in length and breadth, behind them.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	8	expl	_	_
8	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
10	fresh	fresh	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	loch	loch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	miles	mile	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	conj	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	breadth	breadth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **throw** | past | son | ear |  |  |  | behind king | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent it=Theme behind he=Destination |
| 2 | **be** | past | a fresh water loch and twenty miles in length and breadth |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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