---
title: There is a dense wood where every thorn on every tree is sharp as a… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There is a dense wood where every thorn on every tree is sharp as a spear-point and is curved and clutching. Who acts: dense wood, thorn. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IX, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IX, sentence 8

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There is a dense wood where every thorn on every tree is sharp as a spear-point and is curved and clutching.

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**Who acts:** dense wood, thorn · **What happens:** be, curve, clutch

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IX. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dense wood, thorn), 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:pg2892:70:8
# text = There is a dense wood where every thorn on every tree is sharp as a spear-point and is curved and clutching.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	dense	dense	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	13	advmod	_	_
7	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	det	_	_
8	thorn	thorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	det	_	_
11	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	acl:relcl	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	point	point	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	curved	curve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	clutching	clutch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | a dense wood |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | present | every thorn on every tree |  |  |  |  | as a spear point; sharp *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **curve** | present · passive | a dense wood *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP.material V PP.product» |
| 4 | **clutch** | gerund | a dense wood *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn hold-15.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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