---
title: It is almost impossible to distinguish palaeozoic and cainozoic stra… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It is almost impossible to distinguish palaeozoic and cainozoic strata in oral tradition. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, XXI. Beth Gellert., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/55/89/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Celtic Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/) / [XXI. Beth Gellert.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/55/) / 89

# Celtic Fairy Tales, XXI. Beth Gellert., sentence 89

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It is almost impossible to distinguish palaeozoic and cainozoic strata in oral tradition.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** be, distinguish · **To what, where:** palaeozoic strata, oral tradition

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, XXI. Beth Gellert.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7885:55:89
# text = It is almost impossible to distinguish palaeozoic and cainozoic strata in oral tradition.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	expl	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	distinguish	distinguish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	csubj	_	_
7	palaeozoic	palaeozoic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	cainozoic	cainozoic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
10	strata	strata	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	oral	oral	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	tradition	tradition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  |  | almost, impossible *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **distinguish** | to-infinitive |  | palaeozoic strata |  | oral tradition |  |  | vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Attribute strata=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 88](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/55/88/)
- next →: [sentence 90](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/55/90/)
- ↑ back to [XXI. Beth Gellert.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7885/55/)