---
title: "Now, O Conall," said the king, "were you ever in a harder place tha… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Now, O Conall," said the king, "were you ever in a harder place than to be seeing your lot of sons hanged tomorrow? Who acts: king, you. 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 57

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"Now, O Conall," said the king, "were you ever in a harder place than to be seeing your lot of sons hanged tomorrow?

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**Who acts:** king, you · **What happens:** say, be, see, hange · **To what, where:** harder place, lot, sons · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (king, you), 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:pg7885:9:57
# text = "Now, O Conall," said the king, "were you ever in a harder place than to be seeing your lot of sons hanged tomorrow?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	O	of	ADP	IN	Abbr=Yes	5	case	_	_
5	Conall	Conall	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
15	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	19	advmod	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	harder	hard	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	19	amod	_	_
19	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	_
20	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	aux	_	_
23	seeing	see	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	advcl	_	_
24	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	lot	lot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	_
28	hanged	hange	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	27	acl	_	_
29	tomorrow	tomorrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the king |  |  |  | now | of Conall | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | past | you |  |  | a harder place | ever |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **see** *in a quote* | to-infinitive · progressive | you *not said here* | your lot of sons |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer lot=Stimulus |
| 4 | **hange** *in a quote* | participle |  | sons *not said here* |  |  | tomorrow |  | 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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