---
title: As they passed the man lifted a hand and bent a knee to Fionn. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: As they passed the man lifted a hand and bent a knee to Fionn. Who acts: women, man. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter V, sentence 5

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As they passed the man lifted a hand and bent a knee to Fionn.

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**Who acts:** women, man · **What happens:** pass, lift, bend · **To what, where:** hand, knee, Fionn

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (women, man), 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:pg2892:18:5
# text = As they passed the man lifted a hand and bent a knee to Fionn.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	lifted	lift	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	bent	bend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	knee	knee	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | past | women *= woman* |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **lift** | past | the man | a hand |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Theme |
| 3 | **bend** | past | the man *not said here* | a knee | Fionn |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent knee=Patient to fionn=Result |

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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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