---
title: They ran then, the maid moaning and lamenting all the while. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They ran then, the maid moaning and lamenting all the while. Who acts: trees. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/41/52/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 52

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They ran then, the maid moaning and lamenting all the while.

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**Who acts:** trees · **What happens:** run, moan, lament · **To what, where:** maid

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (trees), 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:pg2892:41:52
# text = They ran then, the maid moaning and lamenting all the while.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	moaning	moan	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	lamenting	lament	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	conj	_	_
10	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	12	det:predet	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run** | past | trees *= tree* | the maid |  |  | then |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **moan** | gerund | trees *= tree* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lament** | gerund | trees *= tree* *not said here* |  |  |  | while |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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