---
title: One of them would take a thorn switch in her hand, and Fionn would t… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: One of them would take a thorn switch in her hand, and Fionn would take a thorn switch in his hand, and each would try to strike the other running round a tree. Who acts: One, Fionn, each. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/2/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Irish Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/) / [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/) / 2

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
One of them would take a thorn switch in her hand, and Fionn would take a thorn switch in his hand, and each would try to strike the other running round a tree.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** One, Fionn, each · **What happens:** take, try, strike, running · **To what, where:** thorn switch, hand, other

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (One, Fionn, each), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2892:343`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2892:17:2
# text = One of them would take a thorn switch in her hand, and Fionn would take a thorn switch in his hand, and each would try to strike the other running round a tree.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nsubj	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	nmod	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	thorn	thorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	switch	switch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	thorn	thorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	switch	switch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	27	nsubj	_	_
26	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
28	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	strike	strike	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	xcomp	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	obj	_	_
32	running	running	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	29	advcl	_	_
33	round	round	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obl	_	_
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | would | One of women | a thorn switch |  | her hand |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent switch=Value in hand=Location |
| 2 | **take** | would | Fionn | a thorn switch |  | Fionn's hand |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent switch=Value in hand=Location |
| 3 | **try** | would | each |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **strike** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | each *not said here* | the other |  |  |  |  | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent other=Patient |
| 5 | **running** | gerund | each *not said here* |  |  |  |  | round a tree | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Project Gutenberg book 2892 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/3/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/)