---
title: By twos and threes A score of stragglers from the exiles’ band Close… — The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of I… · tree and pragmatics
description: By twos and threes A score of stragglers from the exiles’ band Closed up behind him. A sentence of «The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Opening, part 15, 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 15, sentence 46

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By twos and threes A score of stragglers from the exiles’ band Closed up behind him.

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**What happens:** close up, score · **To what, where:** stragglers

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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 15. 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.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg78491:15:48
# text = By twos and threes A score of stragglers from the exiles’ band Closed up behind him.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	twos	two	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	threes	three	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	_
5	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	score	score	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	stragglers	straggler	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	exiles	exile	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	band	band	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
14	Closed	close	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
15	up	up	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **close up** | participle |  | stragglers from the exiles's band *not said here* |  |  |  | behind spake *= speak* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **score** |  |  | stragglers from the exiles's band |  |  |  |  | nom score «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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