---
title: It took a long time to walk round them, and you could not see their… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It took a long time to walk round them, and you could not see their tops. Who acts: It, you. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 16

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It took a long time to walk round them, and you could not see their tops.

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**Who acts:** It, you · **What happens:** take, walk, not see · **To what, where:** tops

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, 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:pg2892:15:16
# text = It took a long time to walk round them, and you could not see their tops.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	walk	walk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
8	round	round	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	tops	top	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | It |  |  |  | time |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **walk** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | round side | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme round they=Trajectory |
| 3 | **not** **see** | could | you | side's tops |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer top=Stimulus |

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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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