---
title: Their mouths were black and twisted, and in each of these mouths the… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Their mouths were black and twisted, and in each of these mouths there was a hedge of curved yellow fangs. Who acts: mouths, hedge. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/57/8/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Irish Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/) / [Chapter II](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/57/) / 8

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Their mouths were black and twisted, and in each of these mouths there was a hedge of curved yellow fangs.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** mouths, hedge · **What happens:** be, curve · **To what, where:** each

<!-- .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 (mouths, hedge), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2892:57:8
# text = Their mouths were black and twisted, and in each of these mouths there was a hedge of curved yellow fangs.
1	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mouths	mouth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	twisted	twisted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
13	mouths	mouth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
14	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	15	expl	_	_
15	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	hedge	hedge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	curved	curve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	21	amod	_	_
20	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	fangs	fang	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | daughters's mouths |  |  |  |  | black *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | daughters's mouths *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | past | a hedge of curved yellow fangs |  |  | each; there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in each=Location |
| 4 | **curve** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP.material V PP.product»: agent=Material |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/57/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/57/9/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter II](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/57/)