---
title: On the borders of the river stood the ancient city of Seville, surro… — Legends of the conquest of Spain · tree and pragmatics
description: On the borders of the river stood the ancient city of Seville, surrounded by Roman walls, and defended by its golden tower. A sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Muza Marches Against the City of Seville., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/29/2/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Legends of the conquest of Spain](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/) / [Muza Marches Against the City of Sevil…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/29/) / 2

# Legends of the conquest of Spain, Muza Marches Against the City of Seville., sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
On the borders of the river stood the ancient city of Seville, surrounded by Roman walls, and defended by its golden tower.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** stand, surround, defend · **To what, where:** ancient city, borders

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Muza Marches Against the City of Seville.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg77685:29:2
# text = On the borders of the river stood the ancient city of Seville, surrounded by Roman walls, and defended by its golden tower.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	borders	border	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
7	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	ancient	ancient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	Seville	Seville	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	surrounded	surround	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
15	by	by	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	Roman	roman	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	walls	wall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	defended	defend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	conj	_	_
21	by	by	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
23	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	tower	tower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past |  | the ancient city of Seville |  | the borders |  | of the river | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent city=Theme on border=Destination |
| 2 | **surround** | participle |  | the ancient city of Seville *not said here* |  |  |  | by Roman walls | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **defend** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | by city's golden tower | vn defend-72.3 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/29/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/29/3/)
- ↑ back to [Muza Marches Against the City of Seville.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/29/)