---
title: They had three crooked sticks of holly set up before the cave, and t… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They had three crooked sticks of holly set up before the cave, and they were reeling yarn off these. Who acts: daughters. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 24

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They had three crooked sticks of holly set up before the cave, and they were reeling yarn off these.

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**Who acts:** daughters · **What happens:** have, set up, reel · **To what, where:** three crooked sticks, cave, yarn

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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 (daughters), 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:pg2892:58:24
# text = They had three crooked sticks of holly set up before the cave, and they were reeling yarn off these.
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	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
4	crooked	crooked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
6	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	holly	holly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	set	set	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
9	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	before	before	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	reeling	reel	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
18	yarn	yarn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
19	off	off	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	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 | daughters *= daughter* | three crooked sticks |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stick=Patient |
| 2 | **set up** | participle |  | three crooked sticks *not said here* |  | the cave |  | holly *property* | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent before cave=Destination |
| 3 | **reel** | past · progressive | daughters *= daughter* | yarn |  |  |  | off these | tree rules |

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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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