---
title: It was hard to with-stand the terrific blows of that mighty female,… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It was hard to with-stand the terrific blows of that mighty female, for her sword played with the quickness of lightning and smote like the heavy crashing of a storm. Who acts: sword, mighty female. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI, with its dependency tree and the pra
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/61/32/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VI, sentence 32

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It was hard to with-stand the terrific blows of that mighty female, for her sword played with the quickness of lightning and smote like the heavy crashing of a storm.

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**Who acts:** sword, mighty female · **What happens:** be, stand, play, smote, blow · **To what, where:** terrific blows

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sword, mighty female), 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:pg2892:61:32
# text = It was hard to with-stand the terrific blows of that mighty female, for her sword played with the quickness of lightning and smote like the heavy crashing of a storm.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	expl	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	stand	stand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	terrific	terrific	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	blows	blow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
13	mighty	mighty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	female	female	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	quickness	quickness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	smote	smote	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
27	like	like	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	crashing	crashing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
31	of	of	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
32	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **stand** | to-infinitive |  | the terrific blows of that mighty female |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer blow=Stimulus |
| 3 | **play** | past | Morna's sword |  |  |  |  | with the quickness of lightning | vn play-114.2-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent with quickness=Theme |
| 4 | **smote** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | like the heavy crashing of a storm | tree rules |
| 5 | **blow** |  | that mighty female |  |  |  |  |  | nom blow «act intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .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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