---
title: He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when he w… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when he walked, so he went stiffly. Who acts: pleasure. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XVIII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XVIII, sentence 8

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He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when he walked, so he went stiffly.

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**Who acts:** pleasure · **What happens:** take, not loosen, walk, go · **To what, where:** little slow steps, knees

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XVIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pleasure), 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:pg2892:89:8
# text = He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when he walked, so he went stiffly.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	slow	slow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	loosen	loosen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	knees	knee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
21	stiffly	stiffly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | pleasure | little slow steps |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent step=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **loosen** | past · do-support | pleasure | pleasure's knees |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent knee=Patient |
| 3 | **walk** | past | pleasure |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **go** | past | pleasure |  |  |  |  | stiffly *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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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