---
title: Every year before that time three crops of corn used to be lifted of… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Every year before that time three crops of corn used to be lifted off the land, but during Art’s absence there was no corn in Ireland and there was no milk. Who acts: year, Art. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/65/25/)

<!-- 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 IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/65/) / 25

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 25

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Every year before that time three crops of corn used to be lifted off the land, but during Art’s absence there was no corn in Ireland and there was no milk.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** year, Art · **What happens:** use, lift off, be, absent · **To what, where:** corn, land, milk

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (year, Art), 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:pg2892:65:25
# text = Every year before that time three crops of corn used to be lifted off the land, but during Art’s absence there was no corn in Ireland and there was no milk.
1	Every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	2	det	_	_
2	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	nsubj	_	_
3	before	before	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	crops	crop	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	corn	corn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
10	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	lifted	lift	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	xcomp	_	_
14	off	off	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
19	during	during	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	Art	Art	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	's	PART	POS	_	20	case	_	_
22	absence	absence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
23	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	24	expl	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	33	cop	_	_
25	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	26	det	_	_
26	corn	corn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	nsubj	_	_
27	in	in	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	Ireland	Ireland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	31	expl	_	_
31	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	33	cop	_	_
32	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	33	det	_	_
33	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	33	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | participle |  | corn *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **lift off** | to-infinitive · passive |  | the land |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: land=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | past | every year before that time  three crops of corn | no milk |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **absent** |  | Art |  |  |  |  |  | nom absence «state transitive»: poss=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.

<!-- 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 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/65/24/)
- next →: [sentence 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/65/26/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/65/)