---
title: His fingers hardly touched it, when he let a roar out of him as if h… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: His fingers hardly touched it, when he let a roar out of him as if heaven and earth were coming together, and kept flinging his arms about and dancing, that it was pitiful to look at him. Who acts: fingers, Tom, heaven, end. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Lad With the Goat-
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Lad With the Goat-skin, sentence 90

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His fingers hardly touched it, when he let a roar out of him as if heaven and earth were coming together, and kept flinging his arms about and dancing, that it was pitiful to look at him.

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**Who acts:** fingers, Tom, heaven, end · **What happens:** touch, let, come together, keep, fling, dance · **To what, where:** end, roar, arms

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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 (fingers, Tom, heaven, end), 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:pg7885:33:90
# text = His fingers hardly touched it, when he let a roar out of him as if heaven and earth were coming together, and kept flinging his arms about and dancing, that it was pitiful to look at him.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	let	let	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	roar	roar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	out	out	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	_
15	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	heaven	heaven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
22	together	together	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
26	flinging	fling	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	25	xcomp	_	_
27	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	arms	arm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obj	_	_
29	about	about	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	dancing	dance	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	26	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
33	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	36	mark	_	_
34	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	36	nsubj	_	_
35	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	36	cop	_	_
36	pitiful	pitiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	_
37	to	to	PART	TO	_	38	mark	_	_
38	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	36	advcl	_	_
39	at	at	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
40	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	38	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past | Tom's fingers | end |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **let** | past | Tom | a roar |  |  |  | out flail | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent roar=Theme |
| 3 | **come together** | past · progressive | heaven and earth |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **keep** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **fling** | gerund |  | Tom's arms |  |  |  | about *property* | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent arm=Theme |
| 6 | **dance** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **is** | past | end |  |  |  |  | pitiful *property* | tree rules |
| 8 | **look** | to-infinitive | end *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at Tom | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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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