---
title: Fionn sat at the kindly man’s feet, his hands absent among tall gras… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Fionn sat at the kindly man’s feet, his hands absent among tall grasses, and listening with all his ears. Who acts: Fionn. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IX, 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/pg2892/22/23/)

<!-- 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 IX](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/22/) / 23

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IX, sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Fionn sat at the kindly man’s feet, his hands absent among tall grasses, and listening with all his ears.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Fionn · **What happens:** sit, listen · **To what, where:** feet

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IX. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fionn), 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:pg2892:22:23
# text = Fionn sat at the kindly man’s feet, his hands absent among tall grasses, and listening with all his ears.
1	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	kindly	kindly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	absent	absent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
13	among	among	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	tall	tall	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	grasses	grass	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	listening	listen	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	22	det:predet	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | Fionn |  |  | the man's feet |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at foot=Location |
| 2 | **listen** | gerund | Fionn *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with Fionn's ears | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/22/22/)
- next →: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/22/24/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter IX](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/22/)