---
title: The Arabs were not slow in answering their defiance. — Legends of the conquest of Spain · tree and pragmatics
description: The Arabs were not slow in answering their defiance. Who acts: Arabs. A sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Skirmishing of the Armies.—pelistes and His Son.—pelistes and the Bishop., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends of the conquest of Spain, Skirmishing of the Armies.—pelistes and His Son.—pelistes and the Bishop., sentence 5

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The Arabs were not slow in answering their defiance.

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**Who acts:** Arabs · **What happens:** not be, answer · **To what, where:** defiance

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This is a sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Skirmishing of the Armies.—pelistes and His Son.—pelistes and the Bishop.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Arabs), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg77685:16:5
# text = The Arabs were not slow in answering their defiance.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Arabs	Arab	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	slow	slow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	answering	answer	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	defiance	defiance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | the Arabs |  |  |  |  | slow *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | gerund | the Arabs *not said here* | Arabs's defiance |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent defiance=Eventuality |

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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:** «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Project Gutenberg book 77685 (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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