---
title: Their arms were long and skinny and muscular, and at the end of each… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Their arms were long and skinny and muscular, and at the end of each finger they had a spiked nail that was as hard as horn and as sharp as a briar. Who acts: arms, mouths, spiked nail. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/57/10/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Their arms were long and skinny and muscular, and at the end of each finger they had a spiked nail that was as hard as horn and as sharp as a briar.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** arms, mouths, spiked nail · **What happens:** be, have, spike · **To what, where:** spiked nail, end

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (arms, mouths, spiked nail), 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:pg2892:57:10
# text = Their arms were long and skinny and muscular, and at the end of each finger they had a spiked nail that was as hard as horn and as sharp as a briar.
1	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	arms	arm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	skinny	skinny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	muscular	muscular	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	det	_	_
16	finger	finger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	spiked	spike	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	21	amod	_	_
21	nail	nail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
22	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	25	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
24	as	as	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	acl:relcl	_	_
26	as	as	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	horn	horn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
29	as	as	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
30	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	_
31	as	as	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
32	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	briar	briar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | mouths's arms |  |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | mouths's arms *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | mouths's arms *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **have** | past | mouths *= mouth* | a spiked nail |  |  | at the end of each finger |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nail=Patient |
| 5 | **spike** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **is** | past | a spiked nail |  |  |  |  | as horn; hard *property* | tree rules |
| 7 | **be** |  | a spiked nail *not said here* |  |  |  |  | as a briar | tree rules |

<!-- .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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