---
title: They had long scraggy necks that could turn all the way round like t… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They had long scraggy necks that could turn all the way round like the neck of a hen. Who acts: mouths, scraggy necks. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II, 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/pg2892/57/9/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 9

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They had long scraggy necks that could turn all the way round like the neck of a hen.

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**Who acts:** mouths, scraggy necks · **What happens:** have, turn · **To what, where:** scraggy necks, way

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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, scraggy necks), 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:pg2892:57:9
# text = They had long scraggy necks that could turn all the way round like the neck of a hen.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
4	scraggy	scraggy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	necks	neck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	11	det:predet	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	round	round	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
13	like	like	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	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 | mouths *= mouth* | scraggy necks |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent neck=Patient |
| 2 | **turn** | could | scraggy necks | all way |  |  |  | like the neck of a hen; round *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent way=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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