---
title: He would be their life; and their eyes may have seemed as twin bened… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He would be their life; and their eyes may have seemed as twin benedictions resting on the small fair head. Who acts: life, eyes, twin benedictions. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/14/17/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 17

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He would be their life; and their eyes may have seemed as twin benedictions resting on the small fair head.

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**Who acts:** life, eyes, twin benedictions · **What happens:** be, have, seem, rest · **To what, where:** life, small fair head

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (life, eyes, twin benedictions), 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:pg2892:14:17
# text = He would be their life; and their eyes may have seemed as twin benedictions resting on the small fair head.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
10	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
12	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
13	as	as	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	twin	twin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	benedictions	benediction	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
16	resting	rest	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
19	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
20	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would | life | women's life |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | may | women's eyes |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **seem** | past | women's eyes *not said here* |  |  |  |  | as twin benedictions | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **rest** | gerund | twin benedictions *not said here* |  |  | the small fair head |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on head=Location |

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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:** «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Project Gutenberg book 2892 (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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