---
title: He had a sword in his hand, and there was nothing in his face but re… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He had a sword in his hand, and there was nothing in his face but redness and ferocity. Who acts: griffin, nothing. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VIII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VIII, sentence 18

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He had a sword in his hand, and there was nothing in his face but redness and ferocity.

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**Who acts:** griffin, nothing · **What happens:** have, be · **To what, where:** sword, hand

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (griffin, nothing), 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:pg2892:55:18
# text = He had a sword in his hand, and there was nothing in his face but redness and ferocity.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	_
11	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	nsubj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	redness	redness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	ferocity	ferocity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | griffin | a sword |  | griffin's hand |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sword=Patient |
| 2 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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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