---
title: His ear knew by what successions they arrived, and by what stages th… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: His ear knew by what successions they arrived, and by what stages they grew and diminished. Who acts: ear, successions. 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 8

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His ear knew by what successions they arrived, and by what stages they grew and diminished.

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**Who acts:** ear, successions · **What happens:** know, arrive, grow, diminish · **To what, where:** stages

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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 (ear, successions), 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:pg2892:26:8
# text = His ear knew by what successions they arrived, and by what stages they grew and diminished.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	ear	ear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	3	obl	_	_
6	successions	succession	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	arrived	arrive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	parataxis	_	_
13	stages	stage	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	diminished	diminish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | wind's ear |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **arrive** | past | successions |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **grow** | past | ear | stages *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location stage=Theme |
| 4 | **diminish** | past | ear *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn caused\_calibratable\_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |

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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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