---
title: A sportive contest arose among the maidens, as to the comparative be… — Legends of the conquest of Spain · tree and pragmatics
description: A sportive contest arose among the maidens, as to the comparative beauty of the Spanish and Moorish forms; but the Mauritanian damsel revealed limbs of voluptuous symmetry that seemed to defy all rivalry. Who acts: sportive contest, Mauritanian damsel, voluptuous symmetry. A sentence of «Legends of 
---

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# Legends of the conquest of Spain, The Story of Florinda., sentence 25

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A sportive contest arose among the maidens, as to the comparative beauty of the Spanish and Moorish forms; but the Mauritanian damsel revealed limbs of voluptuous symmetry that seemed to defy all rivalry.

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**Who acts:** sportive contest, Mauritanian damsel, voluptuous symmetry · **What happens:** arise, reveal, seem, defy · **To what, where:** maidens, limbs, rivalry

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This is a sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, The Story of Florinda.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sportive contest, Mauritanian damsel, voluptuous symmetry), 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:pg77685:6:25
# text = A sportive contest arose among the maidens, as to the comparative beauty of the Spanish and Moorish forms; but the Mauritanian damsel revealed limbs of voluptuous symmetry that seemed to defy all rivalry.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	sportive	sportive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	contest	contest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	arose	arise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	among	among	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	maidens	maiden	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	13	case	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	fixed	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	comparative	comparative	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	beauty	beauty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
16	Spanish	Spanish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	Moorish	moorish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	conj	_	_
19	forms	form	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	25	punct	_	_
21	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	Mauritanian	mauritanian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	damsel	damsel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
25	revealed	reveal	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
26	limbs	limb	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obj	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	voluptuous	voluptuous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	symmetry	symmetry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	_
30	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	31	nsubj	_	_
31	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	acl:relcl	_	_
32	to	to	PART	TO	_	33	mark	_	_
33	defy	defy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	31	xcomp	_	_
34	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	35	det	_	_
35	rivalry	rivalry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **arise** | past | a sportive contest |  |  | the maidens |  | as the comparative beauty of the Spanish forms | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme among maiden=Location |
| 2 | **reveal** | past | the Mauritanian damsel | limbs of voluptuous symmetry |  |  |  |  | vn confess-37.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent limb=Topic |
| 3 | **seem** | past | voluptuous symmetry |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 4 | **defy** | to-infinitive | voluptuous symmetry *not said here* | all rivalry |  |  |  |  | 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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