---
title: “What a joy to lie under an inch of water basking in the sun, or ben… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What a joy to lie under an inch of water basking in the sun, or beneath a shady ledge to watch the small creatures that speed like lightning on the rippling top. Who acts: inch, small creatures. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X, with its dependency tree and the pragmat
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter X, sentence 2

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“What a joy to lie under an inch of water basking in the sun, or beneath a shady ledge to watch the small creatures that speed like lightning on the rippling top.

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**Who acts:** inch, small creatures · **What happens:** lie, bask, watch, speed · **To what, where:** sun, small creatures, rippling top

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (inch, small creatures), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2892:11:2
# text = “What a joy to lie under an inch of water basking in the sun, or beneath a shady ledge to watch the small creatures that speed like lightning on the rippling top.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	4	det	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	joy	joy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
7	under	under	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	inch	inch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
12	basking	bask	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	beneath	beneath	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	shady	shady	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	ledge	ledge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	watch	watch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	acl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	creatures	creature	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
27	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	28	nsubj	_	_
28	speed	speed	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	acl:relcl	_	_
29	like	like	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
31	on	on	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
33	rippling	rippling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	compound	_	_
34	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | under a inch of water | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent under inch=Location |
| 2 | **bask** *in a quote* | gerund | a inch of water *not said here* |  |  | the sun |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **watch** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | the small creatures |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent creature=Theme |
| 4 | **speed** *in a quote* | present | the small creatures |  |  | the rippling top |  | like lightning | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on top=Trajectory |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Project Gutenberg book 2892 (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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