---
title: Then, as by chance, he stepped down the sloping end of the mound and… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then, as by chance, he stepped down the sloping end of the mound and stood with his mouth open, staring. Who acts: Fionn. 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 5

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Then, as by chance, he stepped down the sloping end of the mound and stood with his mouth open, staring.

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**Who acts:** Fionn · **What happens:** step down, slope, stand, stare · **To what, where:** sloping end

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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 (Fionn), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2892:1758`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2892:58:5
# text = Then, as by chance, he stepped down the sloping end of the mound and stood with his mouth open, staring.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	stepped	step	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	down	down	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	sloping	slope	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	amod	_	_
12	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
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	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
23	staring	stare	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **step down** | past | Fionn | the sloping end of the mound |  |  | then | by chance | tree rules |
| 2 | **slope** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **stand** | past | Fionn *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with Fionn's mouth; open *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **stare** | gerund | Fionn *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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