---
title: It may be that a fish cannot hop, but he gets there in a flash, and… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It may be that a fish cannot hop, but he gets there in a flash, and he isn’t there in another. Who acts: fish, Fionn. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/25/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Irish Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/) / [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/) / 25

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 25

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It may be that a fish cannot hop, but he gets there in a flash, and he isn’t there in another.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** fish, Fionn · **What happens:** be, not hop, get, not be · **To what, where:** flash, another

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

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2892:17:25
# text = It may be that a fish cannot hop, but he gets there in a flash, and he isn’t there in another.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	hop	hop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	gets	get	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
14	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	flash	flash	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | may | fish |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **hop** | can | a fish |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **get** | present | Fionn |  |  | a flash; there |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **not** **is** | present | Fionn |  |  | another |  | there *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/24/)
- next →: [sentence 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/26/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/)