---
title: The instant they passed the holly a strange weakness came over the h… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The instant they passed the holly a strange weakness came over the heroes. Who acts: instant, strange weakness. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 1

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The instant they passed the holly a strange weakness came over the heroes.

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**Who acts:** instant, strange weakness · **What happens:** pass, come · **To what, where:** holly, heroes

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (instant, strange weakness), 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:pg2892:59:1
# text = The instant they passed the holly a strange weakness came over the heroes.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	instant	instant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	holly	holly	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	weakness	weakness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	over	over	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	heroes	hero	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | past | the instant | the holly |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme holly=Trajectory |
| 2 | **come** | past | a strange weakness |  |  | the heroes |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme over hero=Initial\_Location |

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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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