---
title: They were bristling and terrible, and each bite from those great, ke… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They were bristling and terrible, and each bite from those great, keen jaws was woe to the beast that received it. Who acts: hounds, bite, beast. 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 11

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They were bristling and terrible, and each bite from those great, keen jaws was woe to the beast that received it.

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**Who acts:** hounds, bite, beast · **What happens:** bristle, be, receive · **To what, where:** woe, bite

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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 (hounds, bite, beast), 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:pg2892:37:11
# text = They were bristling and terrible, and each bite from those great, keen jaws was woe to the beast that received it.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	bristling	bristle	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
8	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	det	_	_
9	bite	bite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
10	from	from	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
11	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	15	det	_	_
12	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	keen	keen	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	jaws	jaw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	woe	woe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	beast	beast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj	_	_
22	received	receive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	acl:relcl	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bristle** | past · progressive | hounds *= hound* |  |  |  |  |  | vn bulge-47.5.3 «NP V»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **is a** | past | each bite from that great keen jaws | woe |  |  |  | to the beast | tree rules |
| 3 | **receive** | past | the beast | bite |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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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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