---
title: The five wise hounds were in a circle and were giving battle to an h… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The five wise hounds were in a circle and were giving battle to an hundred dogs at once. Who acts: five wise hounds. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter V, sentence 10

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The five wise hounds were in a circle and were giving battle to an hundred dogs at once.

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**Who acts:** five wise hounds · **What happens:** be, give · **To what, where:** circle, battle, hundred dogs

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (five wise hounds), 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:pg2892:37:10
# text = The five wise hounds were in a circle and were giving battle to an hundred dogs at once.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
3	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	hounds	hound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	circle	circle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	giving	give	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	_
12	battle	battle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the five wise hounds |  |  | a circle |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** | past · progressive | the five wise hounds *not said here* | battle | a hundred dogs |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient PP.asset»: agent=Agent battle=Theme to dog=Recipient at once=Asset |

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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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