---
title: But at this hour a wise person leaves engagements to the bats and th… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But at this hour a wise person leaves engagements to the bats and the staring owls and the round-eyed creatures that prowl and sniff in the dark. Who acts: wise person, eyed creatures. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of eve
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/43/21/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 21

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But at this hour a wise person leaves engagements to the bats and the staring owls and the round-eyed creatures that prowl and sniff in the dark.

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**Who acts:** wise person, eyed creatures · **What happens:** leave, prowl, sniff · **To what, where:** engagements, bats

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wise person, eyed creatures), 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:pg2892:43:21
# text = But at this hour a wise person leaves engagements to the bats and the staring owls and the round-eyed creatures that prowl and sniff in the dark.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	leaves	leave	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	engagements	engagement	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bats	bat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	staring	staring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	owls	owl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
19	round	round	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	eyed	eyed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	creatures	creature	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
23	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	24	nsubj	_	_
24	prowl	prowl	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	acl:relcl	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	sniff	sniff	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	conj	_	_
27	in	in	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	dark	dark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** | present | a wise person | engagements | the bats and the staring owls and the eyed creatures |  | hour |  | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent engagement=Theme to bat=Recipient |
| 2 | **prowl** | present | the eyed creatures |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **sniff** | present | the eyed creatures *not said here* |  |  |  |  | in the dark | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in dark=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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