---
title: Then spake the queen; ‘The hand of yonder chief Sustains our battle’… — The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of I… · tree and pragmatics
description: Then spake the queen; ‘The hand of yonder chief Sustains our battle’s balance. Who acts: you, hand, our, battle. A sentence of «The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Opening, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age, Opening, part 14, sentence 119

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then spake the queen; ‘The hand of yonder chief Sustains our battle’s balance.

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**Who acts:** you, hand, our, battle · **What happens:** speak, sustain, battle, balance · **To what, where:** queen, balance · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Opening, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, hand, our, battle), 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:pg78491:14:121
# text = Then spake the queen; ‘The hand of yonder chief Sustains our battle’s balance.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
2	spake	speak	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	yonder	yonder	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	chief	chief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	Sustains	sustain	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
13	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	battle	battle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’s	's	PART	POS	_	14	case	_	_
16	balance	balance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | imperative | you *not said here* | the queen |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sustain** | present | the hand of chief | our battle's balance |  |  |  |  | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent balance=Theme |
| 3 | **battle** |  | our |  |  |  |  |  | nom battle «act transitive»: poss=agent |
| 4 | **balance** |  | our battle |  |  |  |  |  | nom balance «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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:** «The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Project Gutenberg book 78491 (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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