---
title: They made the holes, then they laid hands on the horse. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They made the holes, then they laid hands on the horse. Who acts: holes. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Conall Yellowclaw, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Conall Yellowclaw, sentence 27

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They made the holes, then they laid hands on the horse.

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**Who acts:** holes · **What happens:** make, lay · **To what, where:** holes, hands

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Conall Yellowclaw. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (holes), 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:pg7885:9:27
# text = They made the holes, then they laid hands on the horse.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	holes	hole	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | holes *= hole* | the holes |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset hole=Product |
| 2 | **lay** | past | holes *= hole* | hands |  |  | then | on the horse | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme on horse=Destination |

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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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