---
title: But at these vile creatures he thrust with his lengthy spear or stab… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But at these vile creatures he thrust with his lengthy spear or stabbed at closer reach with a dagger. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X, 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/pg2892/71/4/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter X, sentence 4

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But at these vile creatures he thrust with his lengthy spear or stabbed at closer reach with a dagger.

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**What happens:** stab

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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: 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:pg2892:71:4
# text = But at these vile creatures he thrust with his lengthy spear or stabbed at closer reach with a dagger.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
4	vile	vile	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	creatures	creature	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	thrust	thrust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	lengthy	lengthy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
12	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	stabbed	stab	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	conj	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	closer	close	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	amod	_	_
16	reach	reach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	dagger	dagger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stab** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | at closer reach with a dagger | vn poke-19-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at reach=Theme |

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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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