---
title: “Around me the trees were dragged from earth with dying groans; they… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Around me the trees were dragged from earth with dying groans; they leaped into the air and flew like birds. Who acts: earth, trees. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V. “Tell on, my love,” Finnian murmured, 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/pg2892/6/26/)

<!-- 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 V. “Tell on, my love,” Finnian…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/6/) / 26

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter V. “Tell on, my love,” Finnian murmured, sentence 26

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Around me the trees were dragged from earth with dying groans; they leaped into the air and flew like birds.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** earth, trees · **What happens:** drag, die, leap, fly · **To what, where:** trees, earth, groans, air

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V. “Tell on, my love,” Finnian murmured. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (earth, trees), 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:pg2892:6:26
# text = “Around me the trees were dragged from earth with dying groans; they leaped into the air and flew like birds.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Around	around	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	dragged	drag	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
10	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	dying	die	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	_
12	groans	groan	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	leaped	leap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
16	into	into	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
21	like	like	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drag** *in a quote* | past · passive |  | me's trees |  | earth |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: subject=Theme from earth=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **die** *in a quote* | gerund | earth *not said here* | groans |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **leap** *in a quote* | past | trees *= tree* |  |  | the air |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into air=Destination |
| 4 | **fly** *in a quote* | past | trees *= tree* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like birds | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP 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 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/6/25/)
- next →: [sentence 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/6/27/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter V. “Tell on, my love,” Finnian murmured](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/6/)