---
title: There were young men and young girls, and when these were not holdin… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There were young men and young girls, and when these were not holding each other’s hands it was because their arms were round each other’s necks. Who acts: young men, these, concourse. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIV, sentence 5

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There were young men and young girls, and when these were not holding each other’s hands it was because their arms were round each other’s necks.

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**Who acts:** young men, these, concourse · **What happens:** be, not hold · **To what, where:** hands

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young men, these, concourse), 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:pg2892:85:5
# text = There were young men and young girls, and when these were not holding each other’s hands it was because their arms were round each other’s necks.
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	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
10	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	14	mark	_	_
11	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	14	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	25	advcl	_	_
15	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	det	_	_
16	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’s	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
21	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
22	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	arms	arm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	_
24	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
25	round	round	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
26	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	27	det	_	_
27	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’s	's	PART	POS	_	25	case	_	_
29	necks	neck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	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 | **be** | past | young men and young girls |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **hold** | past · progressive | these | each other's hands |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | concourse |  |  |  |  | each other *obl*; round *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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