---
title: When they read the fatal parchment, the scroll fell from their tremb… — Legends of the conquest of Spain · tree and pragmatics
description: When they read the fatal parchment, the scroll fell from their trembling hands. Who acts: favour, scroll. A sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Fate of Abdalasis and Exilona.—death of Muza., 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/pg77685/38/24/)

<!-- 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/) / [Fate of Abdalasis and Exilona.—death o…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/38/) / 24

# Legends of the conquest of Spain, Fate of Abdalasis and Exilona.—death of Muza., sentence 24

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When they read the fatal parchment, the scroll fell from their trembling hands.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** favour, scroll · **What happens:** read, fall · **To what, where:** fatal parchment, trembling hands

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Fate of Abdalasis and Exilona.—death of Muza.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (favour, scroll), 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:pg77685:38:24
# text = When they read the fatal parchment, the scroll fell from their trembling hands.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	read	read	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	fatal	fatal	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	parchment	parchment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	scroll	scroll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	from	from	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	trembling	trembling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **read** | past | favour | the fatal parchment |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent parchment=Topic |
| 2 | **fall** | past | the scroll |  |  | favour's trembling hands |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from hand=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/38/23/)
- next →: [sentence 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/38/25/)
- ↑ back to [Fate of Abdalasis and Exilona.—death of Muza.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77685/38/)