---
title: Mongan’s men made a roof of their shields, and the hailstones batter… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Mongan’s men made a roof of their shields, and the hailstones battered on the shields so terribly that even under them they were afraid. Who acts: men, hailstones. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 6

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Mongan’s men made a roof of their shields, and the hailstones battered on the shields so terribly that even under them they were afraid.

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**Who acts:** men, hailstones · **What happens:** make, batter, be · **To what, where:** roof, hailstones

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men, hailstones), 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:pg2892:74:6
# text = Mongan’s men made a roof of their shields, and the hailstones battered on the shields so terribly that even under them they were afraid.
1	Mongan	Mongan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	’s	's	PART	POS	_	1	case	_	_
3	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	roof	roof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	shields	shield	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hailstones	hailstone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	battered	batter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	shields	shield	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	terribly	terribly	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
20	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
21	even	even	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
22	under	under	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
24	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | Mongan's men | a roof of men's shields |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent roof=Product |
| 2 | **batter** | participle · passive |  | the hailstones |  |  |  | on the shields | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: subject=Instrument on shield=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | past | hailstones *= hailstone* |  |  |  |  | afraid, terribly *property* | tree rules |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/74/5/)
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- ↑ back to [Chapter III](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/74/)