---
title: The eyes of women brightened and softened when they looked at me. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The eyes of women brightened and softened when they looked at me. Who acts: eyes. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII, sentence 20

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The eyes of women brightened and softened when they looked at me.

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**Who acts:** eyes · **What happens:** brighten, soften, look

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eyes), 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:pg2892:8:20
# text = The eyes of women brightened and softened when they looked at me.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
5	brightened	brighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	advcl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	softened	soften	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **brighten** | participle | the eyes of women *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **soften** | participle | the eyes of women *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **look** | past | the eyes of women |  |  |  |  | at me | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at i=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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