---
title: In the morning as they sat at breakfast four clerics were announced,… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: In the morning as they sat at breakfast four clerics were announced, and when they entered the king looked on them with stern disapproval. Who acts: they, clerics, king. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/44/1/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter V, sentence 1

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In the morning as they sat at breakfast four clerics were announced, and when they entered the king looked on them with stern disapproval.

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**Who acts:** they, clerics, king · **What happens:** sit, announce, enter, look · **To what, where:** breakfast, four clerics

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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 (they, clerics, king), 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:pg2892:44:1
# text = In the morning as they sat at breakfast four clerics were announced, and when they entered the king looked on them with stern disapproval.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	breakfast	breakfast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
9	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
10	clerics	cleric	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	announced	announce	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	entered	enter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	_
23	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	stern	stern	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	disapproval	disapproval	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | they |  |  | breakfast | morning |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at breakfast=Location |
| 2 | **announce** *speech: other* | past · passive |  | four clerics |  |  |  |  | vn reflexive\_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **enter** | past | clerics *= cleric* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **look** | past | the king |  |  |  |  | on clerics *= cleric*; with stern disapproval | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent on they=Theme |

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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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- ↑ back to [Chapter V](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/44/)