---
title: It was a wonderful sight and a great deed this binding of the Fianna… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a wonderful sight and a great deed this binding of the Fianna, and the three sisters laughed with a joy that was terrible to hear and was almost death to see. Who acts: strength, three sisters, joy. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and 
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/59/23/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was a wonderful sight and a great deed this binding of the Fianna, and the three sisters laughed with a joy that was terrible to hear and was almost death to see.

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**Who acts:** strength, three sisters, joy · **What happens:** be, laugh, hear, see · **To what, where:** wonderful sight, death

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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 (strength, three sisters, joy), 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:pg2892:59:23
# text = It was a wonderful sight and a great deed this binding of the Fianna, and the three sisters laughed with a joy that was terrible to hear and was almost death to see.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	wonderful	wonderful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	deed	deed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
10	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
11	binding	binding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	appos	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Fianna	Fianna	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
19	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
20	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	joy	joy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
24	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	26	nsubj	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	acl:relcl	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	xcomp	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
30	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	32	cop	_	_
31	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
32	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	_
33	to	to	PART	TO	_	34	mark	_	_
34	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | strength | a wonderful sight and a great deed |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **laugh** | past | the three sisters |  |  |  |  | with a joy | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | a joy |  |  |  |  | terrible *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **hear** | to-infinitive | a joy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **is a** | past | the three sisters *not said here* | death |  |  |  | almost *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **see** | to-infinitive | the three sisters *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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.

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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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