---
title: The mountains were strangely wild and sterile; broken into cliffs an… — Legends of the conquest of Spain · tree and pragmatics
description: The mountains were strangely wild and sterile; broken into cliffs and precipices of variegated marble. Who acts: mountains. A sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Capture of Granada.—subjugation of the Alpuxarra Mountains., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

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# Legends of the conquest of Spain, Capture of Granada.—subjugation of the Alpuxarra Mountains., sentence 27

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The mountains were strangely wild and sterile; broken into cliffs and precipices of variegated marble.

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**Who acts:** mountains · **What happens:** be, break, variegate · **To what, where:** cliffs

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This is a sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Capture of Granada.—subjugation of the Alpuxarra Mountains.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mountains), 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:pg77685:23:27
# text = The mountains were strangely wild and sterile; broken into cliffs and precipices of variegated marble.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	mountains	mountain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	strangely	strangely	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	sterile	sterile	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
9	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	parataxis	_	_
10	into	into	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	cliffs	cliff	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	precipices	precipice	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	conj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	variegated	variegate	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	amod	_	_
16	marble	marble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the mountains |  |  |  |  | strangely, wild *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the mountains *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **break** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | into cliffs and precipices of variegated marble *result* | vn break-45.1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Patient into cliff=Result |
| 4 | **variegate** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | 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:** «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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