---
title: Such a clipping and alteration of the authorities would have seemed… — Early Bardic Literature, Ireland. · tree and pragmatics
description: Such a clipping and alteration of the authorities would have seemed sacrilege to earlier bards. Who acts: clipping. A sentence of «Early Bardic Literature, Ireland.» by Standish O'Grady, Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., part 4, sentence 72

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Such a clipping and alteration of the authorities would have seemed sacrilege to earlier bards.

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**Who acts:** clipping · **What happens:** have, seem, alter · **To what, where:** sacrilege, authorities

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This is a sentence of «Early Bardic Literature, Ireland.» by Standish O'Grady, Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (clipping), 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:pg8109:4:72
# text = Such a clipping and alteration of the authorities would have seemed sacrilege to earlier bards.
1	Such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	3	det:predet	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	clipping	clipping	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	alteration	alteration	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	authorities	authority	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	acl:relcl	_	_
11	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	sacrilege	sacrilege	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	earlier	early	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	amod	_	_
15	bards	bard	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | would | such clipping and alteration of the authorities *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **seem** | past | such clipping and alteration of the authorities | sacrilege |  |  |  | to earlier bards | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme sacrilege=Attribute |
| 3 | **alter** |  |  | the authorities |  |  |  |  | nom alteration «event 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:** «Early Bardic Literature, Ireland.» by Standish O'Grady, Project Gutenberg book 8109 (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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