---
title: The sky was over him; the earth under him; and than these there was… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The sky was over him; the earth under him; and than these there was nothing, or there was but the darkness and the wind. Who acts: sky. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIII, sentence 4

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The sky was over him; the earth under him; and than these there was nothing, or there was but the darkness and the wind.

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**Who acts:** sky · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** nothing

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sky), 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:pg2892:26:4
# text = The sky was over him; the earth under him; and than these there was nothing, or there was but the darkness and the wind.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	over	over	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
9	under	under	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	16	nsubj	_	_
15	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	16	expl	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	21	expl	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	_
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the sky |  |  |  |  | over silence | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | nothing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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