---
title: Acorn before oak I knew, An egg before a hen, But I never heard of a… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Acorn before oak I knew, An egg before a hen, But I never heard of an eggshell brew A dinner for harvest men. Who acts: Acorn, I. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Brewery of Eggshells, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Brewery of Eggshells, sentence 19

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Acorn before oak I knew, An egg before a hen, But I never heard of an eggshell brew A dinner for harvest men.

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**Who acts:** Acorn, I · **What happens:** know, not hear, brew · **To what, where:** egg, dinner · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Brewery of Eggshells. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Acorn, I), 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:pg7885:32:19
# text = Acorn before oak I knew, An egg before a hen, But I never heard of an eggshell brew A dinner for harvest men.
1	Acorn	acorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	before	before	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	oak	oak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	nmod	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	before	before	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	eggshell	eggshell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
20	brew	brew	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
21	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	harvest	harvest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	_
25	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | Acorn before oak | a egg |  |  | before a hen |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer egg=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **hear** | past | I |  |  |  |  | of a eggshell | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **brew** | infinitive |  | a dinner |  |  |  | for harvest men | vn preparing-26.3-1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent dinner=Product for man=Beneficiary |

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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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