---
title: "I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my path is down to the Lough." Who acts: water, path. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Horned Women, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Horned Women, sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my path is down to the Lough."

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**Who acts:** water, path · **What happens:** say, scatter, be · **To what, where:** water, ground · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Horned Women. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (water, path), 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:pg7885:8:27
# text = "I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my path is down to the Lough."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	scattered	scatter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	conj	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
22	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	path	path	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
24	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
25	down	down	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
26	to	to	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	Lough	Lough	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the feet's water |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **scatter** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | the feet's water *= water* |  | the ground |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme on ground=Destination |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | my path |  |  |  |  | to the Lough; down *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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