---
title: They leaped and played about the fawn, licking its face, and rubbing… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They leaped and played about the fawn, licking its face, and rubbing delighted noses against its neck. Who acts: dogs. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 37

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They leaped and played about the fawn, licking its face, and rubbing delighted noses against its neck.

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**Who acts:** dogs · **What happens:** leap, play, lick, rub · **To what, where:** face, delighted noses, neck

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dogs), 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:pg2892:33:37
# text = They leaped and played about the fawn, licking its face, and rubbing delighted noses against its neck.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	leaped	leap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
5	about	about	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	fawn	fawn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	licking	lick	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
10	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	rubbing	rub	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
15	delighted	delighted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	noses	nose	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	against	against	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leap** | past | dogs *= dog* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **play** | past | dogs *= dog* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about the fawn | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lick** | gerund | dogs *= dog* *not said here* | inch's face |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent face=Source |
| 4 | **rub** | gerund | dogs *= dog* *not said here* | delighted noses |  | inch's neck |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent nose=Theme against neck=Destination |

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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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