---
title: So he engaged him, and the first work he set him to do was threshing… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So he engaged him, and the first work he set him to do was threshing in the barn. Who acts: wren, first work. 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 7

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So he engaged him, and the first work he set him to do was threshing in the barn.

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**Who acts:** wren, first work · **What happens:** engage, set, do, thresh · **To what, where:** farmer, work, barn

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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 (wren, first work), 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:pg7885:31:7
# text = So he engaged him, and the first work he set him to do was threshing in the barn.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	engaged	engage	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	9	amod	_	_
9	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	threshing	thresh	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	barn	barn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **engage** | past | wren | farmer |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 2 | **set** | past | wren | work |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | to-infinitive | wren *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **thresh** | past · progressive | the first work |  |  | the barn |  |  | tree rules |

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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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