---
title: He came on Ailill of the Black Teeth sitting on the bridge that span… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He came on Ailill of the Black Teeth sitting on the bridge that spanned a torrent, and the grim giant was grinding his teeth on a pillar stone. Who acts: head, bridge, grim giant. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/71/11/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter X, sentence 11

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He came on Ailill of the Black Teeth sitting on the bridge that spanned a torrent, and the grim giant was grinding his teeth on a pillar stone.

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**Who acts:** head, bridge, grim giant · **What happens:** come, sit, span, grind · **To what, where:** Ailill, bridge, torrent, teeth, pillar stone

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (head, bridge, grim giant), 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:pg2892:71:11
# text = He came on Ailill of the Black Teeth sitting on the bridge that spanned a torrent, and the grim giant was grinding his teeth on a pillar stone.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Ailill	Ailill	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	Black	Black	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	Teeth	Teeth	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
9	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	advcl	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bridge	bridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	spanned	span	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	torrent	torrent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	grim	grim	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	giant	giant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	grinding	grind	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	conj	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
26	on	on	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	pillar	pillar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	_
29	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | head |  |  | Ailill of the Black Teeth |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on ailill=Location |
| 2 | **sit** | gerund | head *not said here* |  |  | the bridge |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on bridge=Location |
| 3 | **span** | past | the bridge | a torrent |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme torrent=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **grind** | past · progressive | the grim giant | head's teeth |  | a pillar stone |  |  | vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tooth=Patient |

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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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