---
title: In a twinkling he sees the very grandest place he ever saw. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: In a twinkling he sees the very grandest place he ever saw. Who acts: lad. 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 44

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In a twinkling he sees the very grandest place he ever saw.

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**Who acts:** lad · **What happens:** see · **To what, where:** grandest place, 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 (lad), 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:pg7885:31:44
# text = In a twinkling he sees the very grandest place he ever saw.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	twinkling	twinkling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sees	see	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	grandest	grand	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	9	amod	_	_
9	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	12	advmod	_	_
12	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | present | lad | the grandest place |  | a twinkling |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer place=Stimulus |
| 2 | **see** | past | lad | the grandest place *not said here* |  |  | ever |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer place=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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