---
title: The king, who was too far off to hear what they were saying, asked w… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The king, who was too far off to hear what they were saying, asked what did the stranger want. Who acts: king, others, stranger. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/33/34/)

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Lad With the Goat-skin, sentence 34

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The king, who was too far off to hear what they were saying, asked what did the stranger want.

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**Who acts:** king, others, stranger · **What happens:** be, say, ask, want · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (king, others, stranger), 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:pg7885:33:34
# text = The king, who was too far off to hear what they were saying, asked what did the stranger want.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
6	too	too	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
8	off	off	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
16	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	21	obj	_	_
18	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the king |  |  |  |  | hear, off *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · progressive | others *= other* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **want** | past · do-support | the stranger |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot what=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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