---
title: When he knocked, a hundred little imps popped their heads out throug… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When he knocked, a hundred little imps popped their heads out through the bars, and axed him what he wanted. Who acts: Redhead, hundred little imps. 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 70

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When he knocked, a hundred little imps popped their heads out through the bars, and axed him what he wanted.

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**Who acts:** Redhead, hundred little imps · **What happens:** knock, pop out, ax, want · **To what, where:** heads, bars, Redhead

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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 (Redhead, hundred little imps), 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:pg7885:33:70
# text = When he knocked, a hundred little imps popped their heads out through the bars, and axed him what he wanted.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knocked	knock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	imps	imp	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	popped	pop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
12	out	out	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
13	through	through	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	bars	bar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	axed	ax	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	22	obj	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **knock** | past | Redhead |  |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **pop out** | past | hundred little imps | imps's heads |  | the bars |  | out *property* | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 3 | **ax** | past | hundred little imps *not said here* | Redhead |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **want** | past | Redhead |  |  |  |  |  | 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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