---
title: For there was a great hole like a doorway in the side of the mound,… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: For there was a great hole like a doorway in the side of the mound, and in that doorway the daughters of Conaran sat spinning. Who acts: great hole, daughters. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III, 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/pg2892/58/23/)

<!-- 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 III](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/58/) / 23

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
For there was a great hole like a doorway in the side of the mound, and in that doorway the daughters of Conaran sat spinning.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** great hole, daughters · **What happens:** be, sit, spin · **To what, where:** doorway

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great hole, daughters), 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:pg2892:58:23
# text = For there was a great hole like a doorway in the side of the mound, and in that doorway the daughters of Conaran sat spinning.
1	For	for	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	parataxis	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
7	like	like	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	doorway	doorway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	mound	mound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	doorway	doorway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	Conaran	Conaran	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
25	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
26	spinning	spin	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	25	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	25	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a great hole like a doorway in the side of the mound |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** | past | the daughters of Conaran |  |  | that doorway |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in doorway=Location |
| 3 | **spin** | gerund | the daughters of Conaran *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/58/22/)
- next →: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/58/24/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter III](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/58/)