---
title: There were ladies on this balcony, and when they saw the travellers… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There were ladies on this balcony, and when they saw the travellers approaching they sent messengers to welcome them. Who acts: ladies, trees, travellers. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, 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/pg2892/75/24/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 24

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There were ladies on this balcony, and when they saw the travellers approaching they sent messengers to welcome them.

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**Who acts:** ladies, trees, travellers · **What happens:** be, see, approach, send, welcome · **To what, where:** messengers, trees

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ladies, trees, travellers), 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:pg2892:75:24
# text = There were ladies on this balcony, and when they saw the travellers approaching they sent messengers to welcome them.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	ladies	lady	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	det	_	_
6	balcony	balcony	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	travellers	traveller	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	approaching	approach	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	xcomp	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	sent	send	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	_
17	messengers	messenger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	welcome	welcome	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | ladies on this balcony |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | past | trees *= tree* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **approach** | gerund | the travellers |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **send** | past | trees *= tree* | messengers |  |  |  |  | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent messenger=Theme |
| 5 | **welcome** | to-infinitive | trees *= tree* *not said here* | trees *= tree* |  |  |  |  | vn admit-64.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

<!-- .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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