---
title: "I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my bloo… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children." Who acts: cake, blood. 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 31

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"I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children."

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**Who acts:** cake, blood · **What happens:** say, break, bruise, be · **To what, where:** cake, lips · **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 (cake, blood), 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:pg7885:8:31
# text = "I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children."
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	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	ccomp	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	bruised	bruise	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
22	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
23	on	on	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	sleeping	sleeping	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	_
29	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the cake |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **break** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | the cake *= cake* |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **bruise** *in a quote* | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | my blood |  |  | the lips |  | of the sleeping children | tree rules |

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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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