---
title: At last Tom came to one of the city gates, and the guards laughed an… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: At last Tom came to one of the city gates, and the guards laughed and cursed at him instead of letting him in. Who acts: guards. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Lad With the Goat-skin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Lad With the Goat-skin, sentence 24

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At last Tom came to one of the city gates, and the guards laughed and cursed at him instead of letting him in.

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**Who acts:** guards · **What happens:** come, laugh, curse, let in · **To what, where:** one, last Tom, Tom

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Lad With the Goat-skin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (guards), 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:pg7885:33:24
# text = At last Tom came to one of the city gates, and the guards laughed and cursed at him instead of letting him in.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	obl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	gates	gate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	guards	guard	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	cursed	curse	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	conj	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	_
20	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=SCONJ	22	mark	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	fixed	_	_
22	letting	let	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	RP	_	22	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  |  | one of the city gates | last Tom |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to one=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **laugh** | past | the guards |  |  |  |  | at Tom | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **curse** | participle | the guards *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **let in** | gerund | the guards *not said here* | Tom |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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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