---
title: “One day I stole from the cave to snatch a mouthful of grass, for I… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “One day I stole from the cave to snatch a mouthful of grass, for I was closely besieged by wolves. Who acts: lumbering bear, wolves. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/7/37/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VI, sentence 37

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“One day I stole from the cave to snatch a mouthful of grass, for I was closely besieged by wolves.

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**Who acts:** lumbering bear, wolves · **What happens:** steal, snatch, besiege · **To what, where:** cave, mouthful, lumbering bear

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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 (lumbering bear, wolves), 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:pg2892:7:37
# text = “One day I stole from the cave to snatch a mouthful of grass, for I was closely besieged by wolves.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	stole	steal	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	snatch	snatch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	mouthful	mouthful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux:pass	_	_
19	closely	closely	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	besieged	besiege	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	advcl	_	_
21	by	by	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	wolves	wolf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **steal** *in a quote* | past | the lumbering bear *= bear* |  |  | the cave | day |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **snatch** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the lumbering bear *= bear* *not said here* | a mouthful of grass |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mouthful=Theme |
| 3 | **besiege** *in a quote* | past · passive | wolves | the lumbering bear *= bear* |  |  |  | closely *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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