---
title: His eyes were skilled to observe in the moving dusk and dapple of gr… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: His eyes were skilled to observe in the moving dusk and dapple of green woods. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VIII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/21/6/)

<!-- 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 VIII](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/21/) / 6

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VIII, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
His eyes were skilled to observe in the moving dusk and dapple of green woods.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** skill, observe, move · **To what, where:** eyes

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

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2892:21:6
# text = His eyes were skilled to observe in the moving dusk and dapple of green woods.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	skilled	skill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	observe	observe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	moving	move	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	amod	_	_
10	dusk	dusk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	dapple	dapple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	woods	wood	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **skill** | past · passive |  | trouble's eyes |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **observe** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  | dusk |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **move** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/21/5/)
- next →: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/21/7/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter VIII](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/21/)